The Invisible Line
by Capsaicin
Summary: Creese, post One. He knows it. She knows it. But they just can't admit it out loud.
1. Chapter 1

Since that day with Nevikov everything had changed but only Charlie and Dani truly appreciated how and why.

The dust had now settled but every particle had fallen back into a slightly different position. Things were shifted and altered and yet they took great pains to just carry on and pretend they hadn't noticed. It was a delicate balancing act. If one of them had stepped out of line and even alluded to it, the whole thing would have come crashing down around their ears. And that was a scary thought; scary for Charlie and terrifying for Dani, because if it all fell down now neither of them was sure if it could ever be reassembled. It was far less risky just to pretend everything was normal between them. Same as it ever was.

Dani, and then Charlie, had eventually returned to work. Investigations were written up, reports issued, conclusions drawn and the whole thing filed away. Would it be that easy to draw a line under the matter and forget all about it? There was nothing concrete they could pin on Crews, at least officially. Suspicion abounded but hard evidence was scant and an efficient wall of silence had sprang up around him. Tidwell, Seever, Stark and Reese all closed ranks to protect the man they had come to see as a friend.

Stark felt like he was righting a wrong that he had visited upon Charlie a long time ago; it didn't make up for the fact that he had failed to stand up for his partner the first time he was investigated but it was the least he could do this time around. Seever had been undecided, she had her political ambitions to think of, but she felt loyalty towards Charlie and she knew he wasn't a bad guy. She also figured that it wouldn't be the first cover up she would ever get embroiled in, and this one was for a good cause, after all. Seever took care not to lie exactly, she just understated her knowledge of Charlie's mission to rescue his partner. It wasn't something she couldn't talk her way out of at a later date if she needed to. Tidwell was relieved, grateful and cowed all at once by what Crews had done. Sometimes it was useful having a complete kook on his team, even if he was a pain in the ass. Tidwell's girl was back, even if she was acting even more volatile than normal, and that was all that mattered. Of course, there was a healthy dose of the Captain needing to save his own ass at play too; he was the boss man at the end of the day, and this had gone down on his watch.

Initially, the higher-ups had a real hard-on for sending Crews down again, in revenge for having screwed them for $50 million the first time, if nothing else. But as the evidence grew harder to gather and Crews' gold-plated legal team circled, it became apparent that they would have to go a long way to make anything stick, so their appetite waned. Going after a man they had already wrongly imprisoned for a third of his lifetime was not politically palatable. Someone on high ultimately resolved to settle for the positive that Nevikov had been eliminated, even if they didn't know exactly how; that was good enough. If Crews really was as dangerous as they suspected he would have rope enough to hang himself, given time. They made Crews aware that he would be watched very closely for the rest of his career. It was implied that a man of his means didn't need to tolerate that level of scrutiny - the choice was his. But Charlie didn't even consider resigning, his job and his partner were his whole world now. He couldn't entertain the thought of losing either.

So they all dusted themselves down and carried on. Tidwell, Seever and Stark pretended like their versions of events were gospel and Dani and Charlie pretended like they hadn't both discovered a pretty overwhelming truth in the orange grove that day.

Bodner had seen it a mile off. Once he and Charlie were through shooting each other, the two men found that they really quite liked each other. Bodner made Charlie recognize the obvious. For all his Zen and deep thinking, Charlie was astounded that he had managed to hide it from himself when his new FBI friend was able to call it so easily. _Of course_ he loved her. He would do anything for her. And he could absolutely never tell her so because she would tear his face off and then run for the hills.

Dani had the very same epiphany at around the same time, with the chalky film of earth and panic in the back of her throat and the scent of oranges in her nostrils. She recalled thinking that she had discovered it too late. But then Charlie had miraculously survived, escaped jail, and she realized that time wasn't the issue; her own cowardice was. It terrified her. _He_ terrified her - what he had automatically done for her without ever asking for anything in return, the fact that he was the craziest sonofabitch she knew and yet she understood him perfectly. This kind of made her responsible for him now and she hadn't gone looking for that; in fact she had actively kicked against it all the time she had known him. She hadn't wanted to know him, to become involved with him or to care but he'd seemingly adopted her anyhow and now she had fallen in love. _Damn him_. She felt more than a little outraged that he had waltzed into her life with his stupid grin and his cups of melon and vanquished her in a battle that she hadn't even known she was fighting. But more than that she just felt _it_ and she didn't know what to do with it. It was huge. She had only been in love once before and that had been a total car crash also.

They both struggled with the weight of it in their own ways over the next few weeks. Mercifully, they were separated to a degree while Dani reluctantly recuperated and Charlie observed a forced leave of absence while the brass tried to figure out the mess with Nevikov. Things were a little strained for a while as both partners detected the shift in their dynamic and felt their way back to a practical means of dealing with each other. During those first few days it was uncomfortable and it was never articulated, but it was undeniably there in his blue and her brown eyes whenever they looked at each other. He knew it and she knew it but the unspoken agreement that they wouldn't _go there_ meant that they could slowly begin to relax. She thanked him of course, for delivering her from Nevikov, but it seemed paltry and like she had taken him for granted. He shrugged it off like it was all in a day's work and made a fuss of the huge basket of fruit that she had delivered to him at the office, rather than to his home since that would have been too personal. It was the end of the first week back on duty together before she finally cracked, troubled by the pressure of the thought that she hadn't gone far enough to show her gratitude and the fact that it was a Friday night and this meant that she wouldn't see him again until Monday morning. They stood in the elevator alone together at the end of the day and she suddenly lunged forward, grabbing him tightly and squeezed the air out of his lungs, letting him go again before he had the chance to react and as the bell signalled that the doors were about to open onto the parking lot. She looked at him briefly to make sure he had gotten the message and darted out of the elevator towards her car. Charlie sank into the seat of his loan car, bewildered by the sudden hug but under no illusion as to what it had all been about, regretting that they'd never had the Nevikov conversation where he'd tell her that he would do it all over again exactly the same in a heartbeat.


	2. Chapter 2

Returning to the routine of work made things a lot easier. They clicked back into their old ways as soon as they had a case on and the relief this brought them and the will for this respite to continue made them a more efficient team than ever. They threw themselves into their work in a bid to get back to normal and to distract themselves from the fact that they now saw each other in a totally different light. Talking incessantly about their cases meant that there was little room for anything else to creep into conversation. The occasional awkward silence when their minds had strayed was immediately filled with discussion of new theories and leads.

He pretended not to notice how glossy her hair was as she drove when she turned to look the other way at a junction and she ignored the sleek line of his chest under his shirt when he took his jacket off before getting into the car. Nothing was getting said but it was all going on in their heads, constantly, night and day, 24/7. Every little detail from the day was recorded and stored in Crews' memory bank, so that when his head hit the pillow at night it was all right there for him to process in the freedom of his solitude, allowing him to wallow in his feelings and keep himself from going insane. Dani had her own methods of coping, preferring instead to hit the gym to rid herself of some of the tension borne of sitting so close to her partner all day that she could imagine how his cologne would make his neck taste. She was earning herself a pretty impressive set of abs in the process, such was the effort required to banish thoughts of Charlie from her mind. She wanted to make herself strong, partly because she enjoyed the punishment of exercise and partly as a measure to prevent anyone ever taking her prisoner again and making her feel as weak as Nevikov had.

Tidwell watched as the duo's already impressive case-solved rate soared. There had been some talk of halting the partnership and assigning them to new co-workers, but the facts spoke for themselves. They were great detectives and they worked well together. Professionally, Dani was more motivated and focused than ever. He hardly saw her, she was either working or at the gym. He wasn't sure where she got the energy from. Personally though, Tidwell noted that his girlfriend was now more erratic and emotionally distant than he had ever known. They limped on together for a few months, Dani using the fact that she was with Tidwell as another tool to drown out her feelings for her partner and Tidwell imploring her to seek professional help over Nevikov, since he put the change in her down to the trauma she simply would not talk about. He tolerated her moods and her coldness, thinking that she would eventually snap out if it and hoping that she would come back to him just as she had been in the beginning of their relationship, if only he could resist pushing her too hard. She only ever seemed happy nowadays when he spotted her across the office, deep in conversation with Crews about a case. He'd be jealous if it seemed like they were goofing around, or if it looked like Dani was sharing confidences with her partner in a way that she refused to with him, but no, it really did seem that it was all work.

Dani knew she was treating Tidwell badly. She knew they didn't belong together and she knew she was being dishonest in sharing his bed several nights a week. But she felt like she needed the cover he provided. She was using him. If she was still with Tidwell and if she and Charlie remained so busy at work she could convince herself that everything was normal, nothing need change at all until she had caught her breath and was ready. Things with Charlie might calm down, level out, and then she could safely come out from behind the charade with Tidwell. Too much change all at once might tip the balance and trigger all kinds of fallout and she just didn't feel ready. She hated herself for it but this was the way it was.

Even though Dani had flawed strategies in place which allowed her to keep it together, she worried about Crews because as time wore on, far from things getting easier, she had observed a change in him too. He was acting a little nutty. Like, more than ever before. He worked hard, he seemed to see the merit in that for the same reason Dani did, but she saw his mask slip more frequently than her own. She could see him thinking about_ them_ in the car sometimes, he was uncharacteristically quiet a lot more often. There was less Zen talk. She caught him staring wistfully at her across the desk. She figured that he found it harder to hide than Dani did. Probably because he was naturally a more honest and open person than she was, she thought. He was better than her, she decided, he would never drag a third party through his mess like she was doing to Tidwell.

Dani saw that Charlie was hurting and this in turn hurt her. He said nothing of course but she had noticed that his little outbursts of aggression were becoming more frequent. The con was lashing out past the cop's self control. The day that Dani chased down a perp and became involved in a tussle when she reached him, Charlie scared the life out of her. Dani had kicked the lowlife's legs out from under him, bringing him down heavily on top of her. The guy used his weight advantage and roughed her up a little, slapping her around and was about to go in with his fists when Charlie caught up and completed the arrest. Once Charlie saw what the guy had done to Dani he took it upon himself to beat the shit out of him as he put on the cuffs, breaking his arm and his nose and cracking his ribs. She had to haul Charlie off of him, or else she couldn't have been certain that he would have ever stopped. Luckily, the perp was drug-addled, expected no better from the LAPD and issued no complaint once in custody. Dani had later screamed at her partner in their car that she wasn't about to let him become one of _those_ kinds of cops; if he wanted to go down that road he could find somebody else to ride with. Charlie apologized, was sullen for the rest of the day, clearly upset with himself, but it just kept on happening. Crews was getting a little heavy handed with anyone who even spoke to her the wrong way. Dani had always known that he had it in him, he was twelve years inside for Christ's sake, but she could also see that his anger was misplaced. He was going to land himself in more trouble before long and she knew that deep down it was over her.

She thought she saw him glowering covertly at Tidwell in the office on occasion. Nobody else would have noticed it, least of all Tidwell himself, but she saw Charlie's eyes cloud over when the Captain tried to joke with him, or his jaw clench when Tidwell called Dani into his office alone. Dani realized that while the knowledge that she was sleeping with another man kept Charlie at bay, he wasn't dealing with it very well either. He couldn't vent his possessiveness and it was turning him mean. In truth, she and Tidwell weren't really all that physical together any longer but the pretence that they were, and the expectation that they should be, was causing problems both at home and at work. Staying with her boyfriend-of-convenience wasn't right for Tidwell, for her or for Charlie. It had to stop and it should have stopped a lot sooner, to Dani's shame.

As far as Tidwell was concerned, it wasn't a great surprise. Things had been way off for a while and the harder he had tried to make it better, the further away she slipped. They hadn't slept together in maybe two months and he was at the point where he felt paralyzed between saying something about the way things were to maintain some degree of self respect and not wanting to bring on the inevitable end of their affair any sooner than it had to happen. He was sad, and relieved in a way, but not totally heartbroken since he had seen it coming like a cruise liner on the horizon. Not like when his second wife had left him, a bolt from the blue which had left him in tatters and easy pickings for wife number three. Dani was calm and firm and extricated herself from his apartment with such efficiency that once she was gone he wondered how much she had ever really been there at all. There was no second trip made to pick up left over belongings or to claim the stuff that they had bought together but agreed that she should take. She had only ever been there in body, her mind and her real life, whatever that was, had always been elsewhere, he concluded. As if she had only ever been taking refuge with him until a storm had passed. She cared about him but she wasn't in love with him, she had said. And she was sorry, she kept on saying, over and over. Tidwell didn't understand what she was sorry for; apologizing for not being in love with someone seemed weird. It wasn't something you could help. He knew that it was going to take him a while to get over her but they were going to remain friends and he told her that he wouldn't stop caring. He wanted to make that clear now so that she understood the next time he _'interfered_' as she put it. He stopped short of mentioning Nevikov because he didn't want an ugly fight but he was sure that things had been failing ever since she was kidnapped. He would take that up with her another day, maybe see if Crews knew anything too.

Dani felt relieved to have finally done the right thing, but also exposed and anxious that her safety blanket had now been removed. She wanted to tell Charlie so that he might chill out a little but she still was not ready for his response if he decided to interpret it as a green light.


	3. Chapter 3

Dani ran her hand through her ponytail and let out a huge, exasperated sigh, drawing Crews' attention across the desk as they sat there in silence on a Wednesday afternoon writing up case reports. She was bored and jittery, she had drunk too much coffee and she still hadn't let Charlie know that her and Tidwell were history and she had already missed several opportunities to slip it casually into conversation. It was playing on her mind. She didn't want it to be a big announcement and make him think that she wanted him to do anything about it. She did want to put a stop to the brooding that he thought she hadn't noticed him doing.

"Want coffee?", she asked.

"No thanks.", he replied, holding up a large green apple, as if that were an explanation.

His eyes followed her as she wandered off with her mug, taking in her legs. He was now practised at taking the opportunity to gaze at her unguarded when her back was turned. He put his feet up on the desk, sank his teeth deep into the apple and thought torrid thoughts about her as he watched her walk away. Tidwell clearing his throat behind him made Charlie jerk upright and school his features into a neutral expression in case the contents of his daydream could have registered on his face in any way.

"Hey, Charlie.", Tidwell said quietly in a conspiratorial tone.

'Charlie' and not 'Crews'; this wasn't a work conversation. Charlie's mind raced as to what Tidwell wanted from him, since it was clear from his posture that he did want something. Charlie knew that Dani's birthday was approaching, the useless clown had better not be working Charlie for gift ideas that Tidwell would take all the credit for. Charlie swung round in his chair to face the Captain.

"Has Dani said anything to you?", Tidwell asked eagerly.

Charlie frowned. "She says plenty. About what, exactly?"

Tidwell took a breath. Why did every conversation with Crews turn out this way? The guy was hard work. "I mean, is she okay? Has she mentioned _us_ at all?"

Charlie narrowed his eyes, confused. "_Us_? What do you mean, Captain?", he asked innocently.

Tidwell bit down on his rising impatience, he knew that Dani would be back at her desk in a second. "We, uh, broke up last week. I wondered what she'd said to you about it. If she's okay?"

Charlie raised his eyebrows. "I didn't know...she hasn't said anything to me." His mind was working overtime, trying to remember if Dani had been any different with him over the past week. This was a big development, he thought. Why the silence?

"Huh.", said Tidwell. "Is that weird?", he asked Charlie. "That you'd broken up with your boyfriend of over a year and not mention anything to your partner?"

"Weird that I'd have a boyfriend, or weird that I didn't mention it to Dani? It's the 21st century Captain, anything goes.", Charlie deadpanned.

Tidwell wasn't amused by his joke. "But you guys talk, right? Dani talks to you?"

"Sometimes. She's not a great sharer though...", Charlie shrugged.

"Yeah, I know how _that_ goes. Would you find out for me though? See that she's alright?", he requested anxiously.

Charlie screwed up his face. "Can't you ask her yourself? I mean, I'm not supposed to know, right? She hasn't told me...so I can't ask her about something I don't know." He was reluctant to start acting as their go between and he didn't imagine that Dani would tolerate it for one second either.

"C'mon, man. Do it for her. She's been acting weird since Nevikov, I'm worried that it has something to do with that and she's not dealing with it. Just keep an eye on her for me. Okay?" Tidwell saw Dani coming back to the desk, trying not to spill her coffee.

Charlie nodded discreetly and Tidwell tapped the side of his chair in thanks and to draw the conversation to a close. He smiled weakly at Dani and withdrew.

"What did he want?", Dani asked Charlie nonchalantly as she sat down.

"Uh, nothin'. Just shooting the breeze." Charlie lied. He realized that he was gripping his apple so hard that his knuckles were turning white. He had only taken one bite but he had lost his appetite completely. He tossed it into the trash can beneath his desk.

"No good?", asked Dani, meaning the apple. He hadn't realized that she was still watching him.

"Naw. Tastes funny.", he replied.

Dani settled back down to her report, pulling a pen from its resting place in her hair to mark the file with. Charlie sat quietly, unable to work, a nagging ache in his stomach, wondering at his partner's actions.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry about the slow progress / sparse updates with this story - family stuff. Thanks to anyone still reading and reviewing!**

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><p>Charlie arrived a little late to work that morning. He had overslept, which was rare for him, a consequence of the sleepless nights his partner was causing him. Dani had texted him to ask where the hell he was, they had a case on already and she was waiting for him to arrive before she set out to answer the call, imagining that he must already be on his way to the office. She was right, because he sauntered out of the elevator twenty seconds after she hit 'Send'. He registered her tapping her foot impatiently against the side of her desk as his cell went off in his pocket. He drew up to her and handed her a steaming cup of coffee made to her exacting specifications, which he knew by heart, without comment. She took it from him gratefully, already feeling guilty about the terse text message she had just sent him; he probably would have made it to work on time if he didn't insist on swinging by her favourite coffee place every morning to bring her a drink. It was one of the little kindnesses he showed her on a daily basis, he now considered it an essential part of his journey to work. He read her text message as she took her first sip.<p>

"Where's the fire, Reese?", Charlie asked, trying not to zone in on her lips as she swallowed.

"Fatality at a factory just outside town. Paper mill. Caucasian adult male, crushed by something heavy on a forklift truck. A sticky end." Reese was always economical with her words first thing in the morning.

"Accident?" He seemed to be chatting the case over with her but she could tell that he was on automatic pilot. He was standing too close, his eyes were wide and thirsty, drinking her in. She knew when she was being checked out.

"That's what we need to figure out.", she stated. He smelled really good this morning, she noticed. And was that a new tie? Ugh, it was going to be one of those days, a day when she found it hard to keep her mind on the job. She had to keep them moving, or else this was what they'd slip into; him looking at her and her looking at him. It could last for hours. One day she would snap; and she felt that it would be her who snapped first too, since he was all Zen and infinite patience and shit. Not that she wanted him to give in, she reminded herself, _strictly business_ was just fine. They had to keep busy. Focused. Lucky she'd signed up for some insane 'Body Smash' exercise session at the gym that night, she thought. She normally wasn't one for collective workouts or being instructed, but this class promised to put her through her paces and exhaust her; she would be too tired to obsess about her partner into the early hours tonight.

"Thanks for this.", Dani raised her coffee cup.

Charlie smiled a shy crooked smile. He knew that this was an apology of sorts for the snarky text and he forgave her immediately. How did someone manage to look so sexy when drinking coffee?, he wondered. Coffee wasn't a very sexy drink but she made it look amazing. But then most things seemed alluring when Dani did them, he decided. Chewing the end of her pen, tying her hair back, fiddling with her car keys, frowning (normally at him)...he composed the beginnings of a list that he would work on properly once alone at home tonight.

"Detectives.", Tidwell greeted them in a very businesslike manner as he whisked by on the way to his office, unshaven, tie flapping over his shoulder.

"Captain.", they replied in unison. Charlie looked after him as sped past, blinked heavily and then looked at Dani, wondering if she would flinch. Nothing.

"We should leave.", prompted Dani, suddenly nervous now that Crews and Tidwell were in close proximity.


	5. Chapter 5

Minutes into their journey, they realized that this call was going to take a whole lot longer than they had anticipated. The traffic was snarled up all over town and Dani drummed her fingers on the wheel, retrieved her sunglasses from the glove compartment and fished out a stick of gum from her inside jacket pocket as their car crawled forward. She continued to fidget, still not entirely comfortable with being completely alone with him where he could suddenly, and often did, come out with anything. Charlie, on the other hand, sat motionless, looking up at the sparse clouds and watching the odd plane streak the sky.

Dani threatened to use the siren, until Charlie reminded her that it would do more harm than good. There was no place for the other cars to move to even if they tried to let the detectives pass. They'd cause chaos. And the squished guy at the factory was going nowhere, after all, he remarked blithely. Dani rolled her eyes. His calm in testing situations was infuriating - that was one thing that hadn't changed.

When they finally reached the paper mill, the stench hit them as soon as they stopped the car. Something sulphurous. They had been called to the scene of countless homicides in their time, with bodies in all states and stages of decomposition, but the mill stank to high heaven. They held their jacket sleeves to their noses and mouths.

"It's the bleach we use to dye the paper white.", explained Pete, the Site Manager who greeted them. "You get used to it after a while."

Dani grimaced and trailed behind him and Charlie as Pete led them to the body. From the vehicles in the parking lot, Dani noted that the Occupational Safety guys and a LAPD Forensics team had beaten them to the scene, they were probably already bitching and fighting amongst themselves she guessed, based on previous experience. This was going to be a drag, she thought.

"Ralph Myers. A good guy. Worked here for twenty years. Terrible accident.". Pete stopped short of the cordon, took off his hard hat and turned his back on the scene in respect so that Crews and Reese could get by and take a look beyond the screens that had been erected.

Just as she thought, there were far too many investigators on the ground, all territorial and trying to assume control. Crews crouched down to examine Mr Myers. Reese noted the position and the contents of the barrels that had apparently crushed him. They swapped roles a few minutes later and then withdrew to compare notes.

"Accident. Industrial negligence?", Dani asked him in a low voice. "Those barrels shouldn't have been stacked so high on that truck."

He wished she wouldn't whisper at him like that, it gave him all sorts of ideas and made the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It was another one of those things she did for his _sexy_ list. He preferred it when she yelled.

They left the specifics to the forensics guys and retired to interview Pete. Despite everything pointing to a tragic workplace accident, Dani was dismayed to hear Charlie being a thorough and conscientious detective and encouraging Pete to hold forth for more than fifteen minutes on industrial relations at the paper mill. Ralph Myers had been a staunch union man, instigator of several complaints and strikes. Reese had to break it up and urge Crews to move on to the task at hand and interview the witnesses. Charlie winked at her when Pete offered to make them comfortable in the boardroom, which had air con and didn't not smell like the rest of the mill, and fetch them coffee before bringing through those of the mill employees who had been present that morning when Mr Meyers had met his end. Dani smiled despite herself; when Crews played good cop he never failed to establish a rapport with people. She agreed that coffee would help make this wild goose chase pass quicker and tried not to think about the mountain of paperwork waiting for her back at the office. The sudden cold air of the boardroom meant that she could now make out her partner's nipples through his fine sky blue shirt. She kept her own jacket on, drank her coffee and fixed her eyes on her notepad.

Three witnesses who had been in the immediate vicinity of the accident and their union representative; the rest of the workforce had been sent home and the mill powered down. They took brief initial statements from each of them, taking great care with Anthony Zemeckis, the guy who had been driving the forklift truck, was only two months on the job and who was understandably distraught. It was all formality and sadly Dani had seen it before. Zemeckis had been inadequately trained, the vehicle he was operating was overloaded, the mill's safety procedures were lacking and now a man was dead. Typically, the CEO and Vice president were overseas and there was not much else to be done apart from hand over officially to the officious Occupational Safety investigator, who glanced triumphantly at his opposite number on the forensics team, and recommend that the mill arranged transport home for the witnesses. They could establish no motive and had no grounds for suspicion. She composed the case report in her head. Sometimes the job was like this, rued Dani, not every call was going to turn out to be a grisly murder that she could get her teeth stuck into. Still, half the day was now gone and she could feel her frustration rising.

On the drive back to the office, they were about to pass by a park when Crews buzzed down his window and took a deep breath, apparently inhaling the smell of the grass, probably a relief after the stink at the mill.

"Hey, can we stop? Take a break?", he urged her.

Dani looked reluctant. Today was amounting to nothing.

"C'mon Reese, take the time! It's a beautiful day, you don't want to spend it cooped up in the car, or worse, the office - right? They'll call us if they need us.", he reasoned.

He had a point, she decided, and he was beginning to win her over when he spotted the hand-painted sign at the side of the road that clinched it.

"Reese! Snow cones! C'mon, we have to stop now!" Crews was practically bug-eyed with excitement. She didn't want a snow cone but his enthusiasm was infectious. She couldn't decide whether he was more like a seven year old kid or a labrador. Either way, she didn't want to spend the rest of the journey back to the office with him whining in the car because he din't get his way.

He grinned at her as she pulled in to the parking lot and had his belt unbuckled before she had even turned off the engine.

"What flavor do you want?", he asked, giddy.

"Not for me thanks, I'm good.", she shook her head.

He bounded off to see the snow cone guy while she found a bench, taking the side that the sun hit and leaving him the shadier spot to the left.

A few minutes passed before she felt him approaching from behind. He sank down onto the bench and held out a chocolate ice cream, the cone wrapped in a red napkin to catch any drips.

She took it from him with a sly smile. "_Now_ you're talking."

He started sucking on his cherry flavor snow cone, satisfied at last. It stained his lips cerise but she didn't tell him. She watched the patterns that the dappled sunlight passing through the tree above them made on his face.

"You were right, this is nice.", Dani conceded, relaxing as the sun's rays hit her skin and the ice cream melted on her tongue. Maybe days like this weren't so bad after all.

They were quiet for a minute. Dani took a deep breath.

"So Tidwell and I broke up.", she said with a level voice.

They both sat with their eyes fixed front, gazing out over the park, pretending to watch the moms chasing their kids, the young couples entwined on their blankets and the septuagenarians tottering along with their toy dogs.

He paused before answering long enough to cause her to look across at him to make sure he had heard her. She saw that he'd sucked all the red syrup out of his snow cone in the one particular spot that his lips were still rooted to. It was like he was frozen too. She looked away again.

"I know. Tidwell told me.", he replied simply.

Dani's head snapped back towards him in surprise. "You knew? Why didn't you say something?"

Charlie shrugged. "I figured that you'd tell me if you wanted me to know. It's none of my business, right?" Now it was his turn to shoot her a look. He longed for her to tell him that it _was_ his business.

That last question was pretty leading, she thought. "It's not that I didn't want you to know, Crews, I was just getting used to it myself.".

He nodded sagely like he understood that. "So, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine. A little too fine, maybe. I should have ended things a while ago.", she admitted guiltily. Another quick look towards Crews' eyes. He looked away first. That was as much as he was getting.

"I'm guessing I shouldn't share that with Tidwell."

Dani looked at her partner quizzically.

"Tidwell asked me to find out how you are, to look out for you.", Charlie explained.

"Oh.", she said quietly. She didn't like that they had been discussing her behind her back but she did like that Charlie's way of 'looking out for her' had been to keep quiet and give her some space. _He's learning_, she thought. "Don't worry about Tidwell, I'll deal with him.", she added.

"He thinks it went wrong between you guys since Nevikov. That it changed you.", Charlie was on thin ice and he knew it but he figured that he wouldn't get the opportunity again.

"Well, maybe it did. But it wasn't _because_ of Nevikov. Something like that just makes you realize a few things. One of them being that I shouldn't be with Tidwell."

They looked at one another again and the silence was a little heavy.

He wanted to ask her what else Nevikov had made her realize, or _why_ she shouldn't be with Tidwell, or why it had taken them so long to actually break up. But these questions were all taboo and he knew it. Plus, he already knew the answers, he thought. He wondered if they would ever get from this limbo of half truths to a place where _everything_ was out in the open. And what might happen once they got there.

Dani bit her lip instead of her ice cream. Had she gone too far? She was happy that they had spoken but she wondered just what he was thinking. She hoped that this would be enough to stop him acting like a nut on the job and that he would continue to give her the space she needed to figure the rest out for herself. She wanted space but she also recognized that she could no longer be without him. Even if he did have stupid pink lips.

She handed him a Kleenex and told him to wipe his mouth to try to remove the snow cone stain, telling him that they couldn't expect to command respect as officers of the law if it looked like Charlie was experimenting with her make up on the job.

"Reese?", he said thoughtfully, "If I did decide to go for a more feminine look, you would advise me on which colors suited me and stuff, right?"

"Sure.", she said, pursing her lips a little to hide her smile. "Now get in the car."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry guys, progress with this might now be slow due to reasons beyond my control but I will keep going. Reviews and feedback appreciated.**

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><p>Dani sat bolt upright in bed. She was sweating. A dream. <em>Deep breaths<em>. Just a dream.

She glanced at the clock's angry red digital display; 02.47.

As she drew up her knees to her chest and exhaled long and hard, she tried to recall as much as she could about it. This time it hadn't been about Nevikov. Recently, most dreams had been about him in a literal sense. Kind of like flashbacks. Then there were the more ambiguous kind; falling from the sky, running down a spiral staircase in flight from something only for the perspective in the dreamscape to pan out and reveal that the staircase had no bottom, she would be running forever. Loss of control, she figured, all to do with having been kidnapped and held hostage. But this time it had been literal and it had been nothing to do with the lanky Russian guy in the terrible sweats and the gold chain.

Sunlight. Bright, bright sunlight and spots of shade. The sun shining down and passing thorough a filter of leaves, casting odd shadows on his freckled forehead and cheeks. The smell of grass, chlorophyll...did that have a smell? Well, in her dream it did.

Tiny spotlights of heat from the sun, pleasure in her shoulders and lower back, and then cold; cold that she was wrestling with, enveloping and gently defrosting. His lips were cold. And tasted of cherries in a synthetic way. Like cherry cola. _The damned snow cone_. She was kissing him and he was willingly being kissed. Right there on the park bench, in public, on duty. She held either side of his face and kissed him slowly and insistently, luxuriating in it, sucking on his lips as they slowly got warmer and less cherry flavored. He held her back, hands near her waist, under her jacket, over her shirt. His hands were warm like the sun. Hot and cold, the sensations persisted.

Full on making out, the kind of kissing you did at fifteen when kissing was the end in itself, rather than a precursor to anything else. That often took place on park benches, too. There was no sound in the dream, nobody spoke and she couldn't hear the noises of the park. She just felt the sensation of growing arousal and the different textures; his hair between her fingers, the cotton of his shirt on his collar contrasting with the skin of the nape of his neck. Cold cherry lips, warm tongue. Like sucking on ice cubes.

She grew breathless and kissed him harder, faster. He matched her, although it was clear she was the aggressor here. She was tilted forward, feasting on his mouth.

And then they broke. Faces still close, he opened his eyes. The second she saw the impossible blue of his irises she had snapped awake.

"Fuck...", Dani whispered to herself as she raked her hand through her hair.


	7. Chapter 7

She felt slightly apprehensive about going into the office the next day. The dream had surprised her, sure, but how much she had enjoyed it and replayed it and relived it since was the real cause for concern. She had barely slept. She sat at the kitchen table drinking her coffee, plenty of time before she had to leave for work for a change because in the end she had just gotten up, it hadn't been worth trying to get any more rest once the sun was up.

Charlie was now driving her crazy. He drove her to distraction when she was awake and he had now infiltrated her dreams too. It was nuts. How had she reached this point?

She sloped across the office, trying to get sat down, get settled, get her PC on with as little fuss as possible before she had to look Charlie in the eye. There was the coffee he had brought her, sat steaming into its lid to the side of her keyboard. He flashed her a broad smile and bid her good morning. She took a deep breath. She should just relax, right? There was no way he could possibly know what had been going on inside her head, inside her bed. There was no way that he could know that she had touched herself over him into the early hours and that was why she had dark circles under her eyes this morning and was tongue tied and a total fucking mess. It hadn't just been a suggestive dream about kissing him on a bench, powered by her subconscious. She had taken it further, and consciously. If he couldn't have know that about her, then what didn't she know about him? She wondered if he was the same. What had _he_ been up to last night? That thought nearly sent her off again and she had to sit up unnaturally straight in order to ward it off. He was the picture of innocence this morning, she thought. So she was sure it was just her. She was a fucking deviant. She needed to get back to the fucking gym.

He was now watching her. She couldn't stand it.

"What?", she asked, it sounding more aggressive than she had meant it to.

"You okay?", he leant forward. "You seem..._off_."

Oh Jesus, he _could_ see it. He was a perceptive motherfucker all right.

"I...I...I'm fine.", she stammered. "I think maybe I have a migraine coming."

"Hey, you know my mom used to suffer from migraines pretty bad too. She would swear by massage to make it better. Head, neck and shoulders. She made me learn how, so that I could help her out. Want me to show you?" He actually made like he was going to get up and come round to her side of the desk.

"No!", she practically yelped. She absolutely couldn't have him touching her. And in the _office_? What the hell was he thinking?

He looked startled at the force of her reaction.

"Sorry. I'm just...kinda jumpy. I'll be fine, Crews, thanks.", she tried to backtrack.

"Maybe stay off the coffee today. It can be a trigger.", he advised.

Great. Coffee was the one thing sure to get her through the day. She scowled, took the lid off her drink and gulped it down in defiance.

Charlie raised his eyebrows and muttered "_Fine_." under his breath, holding up his hands in a 'woah' gesture. Today was going to be fun, he thought.


	8. Chapter 8

Charlie sat patiently in the passenger seat. They were on the way to the home address of a suspect in order to keep tabs on him. Strictly speaking, he was Reese's suspect, Charlie just thought the guy was misunderstood. But Dani maintained that he was a sociopath, so they were on their way to another stakeout. He could think of worse ways of spending his afternoon, maybe the evening too, than in a car alone with her. She had parked up and was getting the snacks. They couldn't be sure how long this would take so fuel was essential, especially if Reese expected Charlie to concentrate and sit still for at least a couple of hours. She knew that she sure couldn't tolerate him in full flow in a confined space on an empty stomach. Charlie had wanted to get out and go to the store with her but Reese was wise to him, the last time she had let him do this she spent and hour trailing around behind him while he sourced the best fruit, squeezed mangoes, juggled oranges and commissioned a bespoke banana and lychee smoothie.

"Um, I'd like a pineapple.", he said decisively when she had asked him for his order.

Dani frowned. She knew without asking that he meant a whole, fresh, pineapple, not plastic-wrapped pineapple chunks. "A pineapple. You're going to eat a pineapple in the car on a stakeout? Could you not ask for something a little more...appropriate..? Portable, even? You'll get juice everywhere. Are you sure you don't want some regular lunch? Like a sandwich? Sushi?" She tried to persuade him to be a little less ridiculous but he was like a wilful four year old who was adamant that he wanted to wear his galoshes and mittens on a steaming summer's day.

"Okay, a sandwich.", Charlie relented and saw Dani look relieved. "_And_ a pineapple. _And_ wet wipes." He grinned at her. He liked messing with her these days, just as he had enjoyed pulling the hair of the girl he liked in the schoolyard when he was a little kid. If he couldn't have what he really wanted, he'd settle for her attention at the very least.

"Jesus." Dani slammed the car door and stomped across the street.

When Dani returned fifteen minutes later, she hopped into the car and practically threw his damn pineapple at him, as well as a sandwich, chips, candy and some obscure-looking Japanese apples she had seen. He had better not start up about food miles. It was much more than he had asked for, but he invariably ate his snacks and then wound up eating hers too and she was hungry herself today.

"Aww, Reese, you brought me the pineapple! I didn't think you would.", he shot her a soppy grin like he was touched.

She didn't know why but this embarrassed her slightly. Like he had been deliberately testing her affections for him with his stupid requests and she had revealed something profound by trying to keep him happy. She reached into her inside pocket and flung a small packet of wet wipes at him, hitting him in the chest. She put her bag containing her food and two big bottles of water in the backseat and prepared to drive off, irritated that all this was taking so long.

Charlie sat there squeezing and sniffing his pineapple, pleased that she had picked him out a good one.


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N**: Continued apologies for the slow burn with this. Thanks for sticking with me and to CCAA, Kimtastic, lipamo, Sar'Kalu, GhostWriterLost for the reviews and also to Silversurf4, not least for your fabulous Life story(ies)._

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><p>Crews and Reese sat parked up, watching the front door intently. Crews munched on one of the exotic-looking apples she had bought him as an afterthought and Dani found herself irritated that he hadn't started with the pineapple that he had been so adamant that he needed more than life itself just thirty minutes beforehand.<p>

"I mean, what has the guy _actually_ done?", challenged Crews.

"Harassment.", Dani stated.

"Harassment or free speech? All he did was slip a flyer or two into a library book.", argued Charlie.

"A misogynistic manifesto, Crews, targeting pretty girls in short skirts who use his library. Just the women. Not the guys. At the very least he's a creep. Two women under 40 then wind up dead, both enrolled at the college, both received a copy of the manifesto from our librarian. In the absence of any other leads, I figure that makes Jackson Bright a person of interest in our inquiry. Beg to differ?". Dani looked at him patiently, waiting for him to protest further.

Crews sighed. "I guess...".

"Why are you defending him, anyway?", she arched her eyebrow at him.

"Oh, I'm not. He _is_ a creep. But he's also a librarian. And we're on a stakeout, sat in the car outside his house and I'll bet he's inside, on the Internet, where he'll be all night, playing _World of Witchcraft_ or whatever it is crazy librarians do. I doubt we'll see much movement here. He strikes me as a virtual kinda guy. All mouth, no action."

"Yeah. _Virtual_. Until he ups and murders two women in cold blood because they offend his _values_..." Dani frowned at her partner. "Anyway, what's with you? Somewhere you'd rather be on a Friday night? Am I keeping you from a date or something?" She used his uncharacteristic bad mood against him.

Any mention of either of them dating, since Tidwell, was against the unspoken rules and they both knew it.

"No Reese, there's no place I'd rather be tonight. _And_ you know it." His tone could be mistaken as sarcasm but the serious look he gave her betrayed the fact that he was speaking the absolute truth. Two could play at this game and if she wanted to push it, then bring it on. It was like a game of chicken.

Dani lost her nerve, looked away and aborted this strand of their conversation. "Eat your pineapple. It might cheer you up."

Charlie gazed out of the passenger side window. Dani frustrated the hell out of him and he was tired, it had been a long week. She didn't have to make a grand declaration or anything, but some kind of a sign that she cared, just a little bit, would have been nice. Just enough to confirm that he wasn't entirely imagining it. More than anything, he just wanted to be allowed to show _her_ that he cared. If he got nothing in return he wouldn't mind so much, just as long as she accepted it. He could feel the pressure building up inside him. One day the dam would burst and drown them both.

An hour and a half went by. They chatted about nothing significant. There was nothing from Jackson Bright, as Crews had predicted - the smartass. Dani ate her sushi, Charlie tried not to watch her in the rear view mirror. He loved those lips. At one point she offered him a piece, and he would have accepted but the thought of her holding out her chopsticks to his mouth while she looked him in the eye made him want to head-butt the dash so hard he would set off the air bag. She probably would have had him use his fingers anyway, he thought.

Charlie started to fondle the pineapple. He was trying to work out how best to peel and eat the thing without making too much of a mess in the car and in doing so proving Dani right about its unsuitability as a stakeout snack. He took out his knife and made a tentative first incision. Pineapple juice immediately trickled down his wrist and dripped onto his pants.

Dani rolled her eyes. This was ridiculous. How could a man she felt inclined to throttle so violently by day be all she could think about as soon as the sun went down and he was no longer by her side? Maybe that's _why_ she wanted to throttle him. Because she wanted him so badly and yet couldn't allow herself to acknowledge it openly. She was doing a lot better with the whole duality of their relationship these days. She decided she had successfully compartmentalized her feelings; she no longer felt so conflicted and embarrassed when casually drinking her morning coffee with the guy she had been fantasizing about so wildly just hours before. It was a means to an end to keep her sane. It had just become the way it was and now felt like a totally sustainable way to live. Only every so often did day and night still blur, leaving her confused, dry-mouthed and almost hypnotized whenever he did something to nearly push her over the edge.

There was no duality for Charlie. He was _on_ all the time. He loved her _all_ of the time. Everything she did was seductive; when she looked squarely at him he felt palpitations. He did his best to chase unhelpful thoughts away and he understood that he had to keep his distance but it never stopped him wishing. Not for one second.

Dani suddenly sat up to attention. Jackson Bright was at the lower floor window, looking out into the street. Their car was set back a way and the light was already failing, they wouldn't be seen. As quick as he had appeared, Jackson was gone again. Forty seconds later, he emerged from behind the drapes on the upper floor, again staring fixedly at something in the front yard. The squat little man in the bathrobe at the window appeared to be shooing a cat. He stood there hissing and agitating his arms and then disappeared as suddenly as he had emerged.

"He's our guy.", said Dani, narrowing her eyes.

"Because he's weird?", asked her partner.

"Yup."

"Does being weird qualify a person as a killer these days?", he cocked his head.

"People don't kill because they're weird but it's a step in the right direction.", she deadpanned.

"Like me, you mean? You've gone on record in the past to say that _I'm_ weird..." He could see why the knowledge that he had killed, maybe more than once, would be an obstacle between them. Dani was a cop through and through, after all. Was that why she didn't want him?

"The _fact_ that you're weird is well established, Crews.._."_

She saw his expression change in the rear view mirror. A mixture of being hurt by her comment and something else. Guilt, maybe. She suddenly felt bad, she was just being flippant. She hated that he still didn't seem to appreciate just how in awe of him she was over what he had done for her and what he had done _to_ Nevikov. And she sure as hell didn't think he should feel guilty for having ended the life of such slime.

"...but in your case the weirdness isn't the deciding factor. With you it's just an added bonus, I guess."

It was the only thing she could think of to say to rescue the conversation. It wasn't exactly what she meant as usual, "..._but I love you anyway_" would have been more accurate, but it had the desired effect and she saw his lopsided grin spread across his face like sunup.

The moment proved short lived when Charlie grimaced sharply and held his hand aloft. He had jabbed his finger with his knife when she surprised him with her backhanded compliment.

Dani cursed and lunged forward with the wet wipes to stem the flow of blood and pineapple juice.


	10. Chapter 10

They were going door to door in a neat-green-lawn, white-picket-fence part of town. An IT consultant in his fifties had gone crazy and shot dead his wife and mother-in-law the day before, although nobody would have thought so from the sedate, pleasant atmosphere that had rallied just a few hours later in the neighborhood. Not even a very local homicide could shake the appearance that everything was just _fine_ in these people's lives. That was, until you spoke to them. Then the incomprehension that something like this could happen in their environment, to people like them, became visible. Reese and Crews needed to ascertain if any of the neighbors saw anything on the days leading up to the murders, whether they knew anything of the family's circumstances and also to reassure them that they were safe again, that their bubble need not burst entirely.

They walked back across the drive of an elderly gentleman whom, they had established, had no information of any merit. Instead, he had managed to almost ignore Dani completely, preferring to address Charlie as the other man present, despite the fact that Reese had been the one asking the questions. The only time he had engaged with Reese, the ranking officer, was to smile at her and describe her as 'comely' at the end of their conversation when he said it had been his pleasure to help the detectives. Crews had smirked at his antiquated choice of words but was pissed on her part for the sexist snub. Dani was used to it, and chose to let the old bird's attitude wash over her; he was no use to them in their investigation anyhow.

Since Dani seemed so relaxed this morning, so _Zen_ even, Charlie decided to test the water with her regarding an invitation to Bobby Stark's barbeque and pool party this coming weekend. He expected her to be hostile, he knew she didn't exactly _get_ Bobby, but Charlie would really like it if she'd agree to go with him, or at least to be there in a social context while he was present too. He decided to ride the wave of her good mood.

"Is it a work thing?" Dani narrowed her eyes.

Charlie didn't know what the right answer to this question was, under the circumstances.

"I guess. I mean, he's inviting people from work.", he replied.

"Uh uh. I don't _do_ work things.", she replied resolutely, shaking her head.

Dani had stopped attending LAPD socials a long time ago. Her tendency to self sabotage was way too strong. Her drink problem and her unshakeable habit of going home with the most unsuitable guy at a party, every time, without fail, made this rule a necessity. She had learned the hard way.

He realized that he had given the wrong answer.

"I don't think it's exclusively a work thing, Reese.", he backtracked.

"Will Tidwell be there?", she inquired.

She could use this as another reason not to go. Things were kind of okay between them but she wasn't ready to hang out with him.

"I think Bobby asked him. I mean I saw him talking to Tidwell right after he asked me. Who knows if he'll actually show up though? Bobby probably just didn't want to leave him out, to be the only one he _hadn't_ asked." Charlie tried to be non committal, not knowing what to say for the best.

"So it _is_ a work thing?" She pounced.

Charlie's shoulders sank, defeated.

"It's not _just_ a work thing. Bobby's family will be there, obviously, his kids, his wife..."

"I'm not _your_ wife, Crews."

An imagining of an eventuality where Dani _was_ his wife immediately span through his mind. He couldn't help it. Him, her, a couple of kids. The little boy would be tall and have freckles like him, their daughter would be dark and have her mother's pout. Both kids would have Dani's wonderful eyes. They would all live happily together on a mango grove. _Was California warm enough to grow mangos? Maybe they'd have to emigrate..._ He'd have to look into where mangos came from.

He snapped out of it.

"I know that, Reese. So does Bobby."

"So why would he invite me?", she pressed him.

"Because we're partners, we all work together."

The second he said it, he knew that all was lost. It was a work thing. He couldn't win; she didn't _do_ work things and she wouldn't go as anything approximating his date even if it had been a social thing.

He looked over at her. Both her stance and her expression said _'I rest my case.'. _Man, she was as stubborn as hell.

"Maybe I'll ask Ted to go with me.", he muttered.

"You do that, Crews.", she said as she rang the bell on the next front door and they prepared their best LAPD faces for whoever was about to open it.


	11. Chapter 11

Charlie sighed. Sex. It was everywhere he looked. He wasn't even actively looking for it but it was there anyway, taunting him.

It didn't use to be a problem. After the first year inside his sex drive had all but evaporated, he had been too depressed to even imagine. The appearance of Connie in his life had awoken certain impulses in him, sure, but these had been mostly romantic rather than physical. Mostly. All his senses screamed 'WOMAN!' whenever she visited the prison complex. But she wasn't just a woman, not just a piece of meat to make him as rabid with lust as all the other cons. Charlie got to sit in the same room as her, to talk with her, to see her up close and take her in. She was a woman alright, but she was also a person - one untainted by prison politics, fresh from the outside. That was so precious to him. Talking with her was like having a window from his cell looking onto beautiful countryside. If he inhaled deeply he could smell ozone, coffee and grass emanating from her hair, all at once. He could smell his home. Once he got over the fact that she represented the world beyond the bars, he was right back to the alarm ringing WOMAN! in his head. She was a fabulously attractive woman at that. The guards were as jealous as the cons. He took beatings over it from both sides. Her smile churned his insides and the very sight of her skin, the way she held herself, her elegant hands leafing through his file, made his tongue feel too big for his mouth and his temples throb. A beautiful woman, apparently interested in _him_, _his_ life, _his_ welfare. His innocence. But he couldn't act on it. Nothing worked on the inside. His body wasn't the same and his mind had changed forever.

Connie had believed in him when nobody else had. She fought for him when everyone else, people he had known all his life, had abandoned him. She trusted in him when his own wife had left him to rot. He couldn't help but fall a little bit in love with her. Charlie had been like a duckling, imprinting on the first person to have shown a shred of faith in him when he had been at his most vulnerable. And he owed her everything. The very air in his lungs today. The sunlight on his skin. The fruit on his tongue. He never forgot that and he never would. When he got out he could have chased her, he could have wrested her away from her husband without too much effort. She didn't try to hide the fact that she had feelings for him too but Charlie knew that like him, she was all tied up in the romance of having rescued him. It wouldn't have lasted. No matter how well he treated her, he would never have been able to fully express his gratitude and she would eventually have grown tired of being thanked. Plus, she was married. She had a husband. When Charlie was set free he felt like he had been given so much that it would have been almost rude, an insult to the universe, to have taken something so precious from someone else.

So, in the absence of love, he had tried sex. His notoriety and his money helped of course but it seemed to be his newfound exuberance and zest for life that sealed the deal every time. He had lost count of the women he had slept with since his release. At first he was like a kid in a candy store. It was as though the hopes and dreams of his fourteen-year-old self in relation to what adult relationships might be like had magically come true. He found himself moving in a circle where there were no strings, no responsibilities and no headaches. All these women wanted was a good time and maybe dinner - he was quick to spot those with designs on his car, his mansion and his bank balance and he stayed away. Weirdly for him, most of his new friends wanted to be with him not because he was a millionaire but because he was a cop. Badge bunnies. Dating cops was apparently a _thing_ for some women. Lucky for him.

Plentiful and easy sex might have gotten boring after a while for some guys. They might have started to hanker for more of a challenge or for something a little more emotionally fulfilling. But Charlie, previously a one-woman kind of a guy, had been quite content to continue just as he was. Empty sex, mindless fucking...it never bothered him until he realized something important. What he realized was that the emptiness didn't bother him because he had been getting everything else he needed elsewhere. The intimacy and trust he used to have with Jen, the effortless knowing of somebody else's mind, being able to finish another's sentences and have them pre-empt your thoughts? He didn't miss it. He didn't miss it because he still had it. That day in the orange grove he realized that he got all that stuff from Reese. She gave him what he needed, only it wasn't physical; he got that part from the badge bunnies. The moment he figured this out he stopped answering his cell when his casual girlfriends called, he quit visiting certain bars, declined invites to the parties where they'd be hanging out. His discovery paralyzed him.

The badge bunnies noted his absence but he barely noticed theirs as he plunged deep into the astonishing recognition that his partner was _way_ more than his colleague. It was only now, months later, wallowing in the fact that he loved Dani Reese and couldn't show it - for reasons he didn't fully understand but accepted nonetheless - that he appreciated the purpose his dalliances with the badge bunnies had served. He was frustrated to an excruciating degree, both emotionally and sexually. It was like wading through syrup, his limbs were heavy with it, he felt slow and tired and lethargic. But it was oh so sweet.

He found gratification in other ways. All the non verbal stuff that went on between them all day. The way she baited him and then argued with him over nothing. She kind of enjoyed the tussle and he knew it. The way he messed with her and always managed to get a reaction, despite her efforts not to show that he got to her. The way that these days, Dani would only go so far in retaliating. He knew it was because she cared. She'd never shoot him like she threatened. She loved him really.

But even though Charlie was a hopeless romantic and an enlightened Zen master, he was also a guy first and foremost. He just really wanted to take her to bed. Sure he'd marry her and buy her a mango grove and all that stuff, but mostly he wanted to pat her down in a very non-LAPD-handbook way.

So the sex he could see everywhere, and could get anywhere, was no good. Charlie only wanted it from the one place from which it was not forthcoming.

He sighed.


	12. Chapter 12

Tuesday.

She was pissed with him. Again.

He wasn't sure what he had done this time to anger her but there was definitely an atmosphere between them this morning. Frosty. He searched his recent memory for possible transgressions. Had he left orange peel in the footwell of the car again? _No_. Did he get her coffee order wrong? _Never_. Had he momentarily taken leave of his senses and actually kissed her good morning in front of all their colleagues like he had imagined himself doing? He didn't _think_ he had, although his urge had been so strong that he couldn't be sure. She had barely spoken to him in the car. She looked like she was struggling with something. He wanted to ask her what but he knew better than to pry where his partner was concerned; she would likely bite his head off.

When she behaved like this he didn't always ever get to the bottom of it. She would just snipe at him all day, slam things around, glare at him but refuse to explain just what had pissed her off. He was supposed to work it out himself, he guessed. Other times she would take him to task for whatever it was and leave him in no doubt at all as to his shortcomings. But today was different. Today she seemed pissed but she was trying to hide it.

They were at the apartment of one Megan O'Mara, deceased aged just twenty-six. Dani surveyed the scene, another young woman cut down in her prime. She didn't work as many cases related to young women as she did young men, sure, but amongst the female victims, those working in the sex industry were disproportionately represented, she reflected. Megan was just one such example. Among her personal effects were the items that led them to believe that Megan had been an 'exotic dancer', as Crews had politely put it when he had emerged from her closet holding various costumes-slash-underwear. There were photos tacked onto Megan's refrigerator of her with her friends, they looked like they were in the same line of work. Dani had found business cards bearing Megan's name from an establishment called The Pearl in her purse. _Did strippers have business cards now?_, she asked. There was a card for a Candi Cole also. A pseudonym? Megan's stage name? There were also various scraps of paper, parts of cigarette cartons with men's names and numbers scribbled on them.

"You think she was a call girl?", Charlie asked her.

"Maybe. It might explain the need for a business card. Even if she was just a lap dancer, she must have been a good one...look at all these numbers, looks like she got propositioned a lot.", replied Reese.

"I know how _that_ is.", Charlie joked. "Women beg me to take their numbers all the time, asking me to dance for them. It gets _embarrassing_."

Stony silence. She had ignored him. Normally she would roll her eyes at him at the very least. He frowned. He had no idea how he had offended her this time.

He decided he should concentrate on the job. "Have you found her cell phone? We should see if she ever dialled any of those numbers. Our killer could be a client."

There were signs of a struggle in the living room, the bedroom had been ransacked and Megan herself laid prone in the kitchen having sustained head injuries and knife wounds.

Crews was deliberately keeping his distance from his partner, quietly looking for the murder weapons, hoping that Dani's mood would improve some before they had to go back to the station.

Dani watched him out of the corner of her eye from across the room. She stood over the body examining her position, trying to ascertain from which angle the blows had come from the trajectory of the blood that had been shed. Although she had plenty to be thinking about, Dani was struggling to keep her mind off the news that had been bothering her all morning.

Back at the station earlier that morning she had overheard two colleagues shooting the breeze, a beat cop and friend of Bobby Stark named Chrissie and Janice the officious office clerk, the eyes and ears of the station no less. They hadn't seen Dani enter the locker room. The subject of conversation was the weekend and specifically the party which had taken place at Bobby's place on Saturday, the one Crews had been bugging Dani all of last week to attend. She had remained steadfast in her refusal to go along, but Charlie and Ted had shown up and enjoyed themselves by all accounts.

"Bobby's sister? You know the one who dated Carlos in Vice?", asked Chrissie.

"Uh-huh, I know her. Kind of a tramp?", Janice nodded.

"Well you said it. She and her little gang were out in force, of course. Kind of inappropriate, if you ask me - I mean, people's _wives_ were there...and there _they_ are hitting on any guy with a badge, wedding band or no. Pretty disrespectful, I'd say."

"Totally.", agreed Janice, shaking her head.

"So anyway, the sister was all over that weird guy in Homicide...what's his name? The one with the eyebrows.", Chrissie prompted.

"Cohen?"

"Yeah, that's him. Except he's engaged, not that that stopped him. And her friend? She was on a mission to bag Crews. Succeeded too, I heard. In Bobby's garage, of all places. Those guys are total dogs off duty, I'm telling you. There were little kids at that party! Bobby ought to have said something. Oh, and Sandra and her husband had a huge fight and he left early, I had to give her a ride home..."

Dani's blood turned to ice. She hid her head in her locker and fiddled with her gym bag, praying they wouldn't notice her.

"Wait. Crews? Aren't he and his partner having a _thing_? Or is that all over?", interrupted Janice.

"Nope. They're still banging, I heard. But maybe not exclusively, huh? A guy with that kind of money? I guess he can do what he likes."

"I guess. He gets around. I hear that his settlement money is not his only asset, if you get what I mean...", Janice quipped.

Both women began to cackle.

Dani had heard enough. She head been wondering how she could possibly sneak out of there without them seeing her but now she was as mad as hell and didn't care. She slammed shut her locker door. Janice and Chrissie both looked up, startled. Dani glowered at them.

"Oh. Uh...Dani...hi. I, um, didn't see you there. Listen, don't think I was speaking out of turn just then, it's just...", Chrissie flailed about, trying to cover her ass and failing, she recognized pretty quickly that there was no neat way out of this one.

Dani gave them a tight smile. Only her eyes betrayed the fact that she was contemplating murder. Like hot coals. Chrissie and Janice were both mortified.

"_Nice_.", Dani said simply, letting her expression communicate her disdain for the two women.

She didn't confirm or deny anything they had said about her and her partner, it would only have provided fuel for more gossip. She fixed them with her dark eyes, letting them know that she would remember this incident, and then coolly turned on her heels and left the room.

That her colleagues talked about her and Charlie in those terms wasn't a surprise to Dani, she had been hearing rumors about herself for months and it had only gotten worse since Nevikov. It had driven Tidwell to distraction while they were still together. The revelation about Crews' weekend activities, on the other hand, did rattle her. She knew more than most that you couldn't believe half of the stories that flew around the station but it made her feel sick anyway.

The thought of him with someone else drove her insane. Now she knew how he must have felt all those months when she was still with Tidwell, knowing what they knew about each other and feeling what they felt. But she had finished with Tidwell to put a stop to that. She wanted to go to him and rip his head off but she knew she had no right. They were partners and that was as far as it went. That was as far as she wanted it to go, _right_? She was in control. _Right_? So why did she feel so wounded? Was this him attempting to move on? Was he through with the fucked up way things had turned out between them? Or was he relying on the fact hat she would get to hear about Bobby's party? Was this an ultimatum? _Use it or lose it, Reese_. Who was this fucking woman in the garage anyway?

Dani rested her head against the elevator wall on the way back up to her floor. She tried to get things straight in her mind. She couldn't ask him what had gone on so she was going to have to forget it. _Impossible_, she thought.

The elevator bell dinged. Crews was the first person she ran into on the office floor and she wanted to punch him hard in the face.

"There you are. We have a call, grab your jacket. A woman, Megan O'Mara, in her twenties, found by her brother...", he started talking but wondered at the faraway look in her eye.

Dani swallowed hard and gripped the car keys tightly, trying desperately to act normal.

Charlie scratched his head thoughtfully and hopped into the elevator behind her.


	13. Chapter 13

"So. What now?", asked Charlie after they had combed Megan's apartment for evidence and gathered some clues as to the sort of person she was and the lifestyle she led.

"Uh, I guess we should visit her place of work. The Pearl...do you have the address there?"

He handed her one of the business cards. She really was all about the case today. She was looking at him differently.

Charlie's eyes twinkled mirth. "You're taking me to a strip club? Is it my birthday? It's only 11.30am on a Tuesday...man, this week is gonna be wild!", he tried to raise a smile or something - _anything -_ from her, but once again failed.

"Well I know you have strict feminist principles, Crews. I'll understand if you want to wait in the car while I go in.", she replied sardonically.

"No, no. I'll be brave. I can handle it.", he assured her. This time she did roll her eyes. But she also looked away like she thought he was an asshole. _Why was he being shut out in the cold? _It hurt him, damn it.

Once in the car, every thirty seconds or so, Crews secretly swivelled his eyes to the side to check on his partner's countenance. She hissed and huffed at the snake of traffic ahead of them but otherwise said nothing. Charlie began to worry a little. His mind immediately span to the worst case scenario. _Was she drinking again?_ His stomach lurched. She wasn't wearing her shades, her hands on the steering wheel didn't betray any tremor, she didn't look overly tired, there was no tang of breath mints in the car and she wasn't drinking any more coffee than usual. _No, she wasn't drinking_. He exhaled a burst of relief once he had quelled that particular anxiety.

She shifted in her seat on noticing him staring at her as he assessed her sobriety.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?", she asked, irritated.

He hadn't realized that he had turned fully towards her. "Um. Is everything okay? You're real quiet today?", he said to cover what he had really been thinking.

"I'm fine.", she looked at the tail lights of the vehicle ahead.

"Are you sure? You've barely said two words to me this morning other than working the case.", he pressed.

Dani sighed impatiently. "You want me to make conversation with you? Aren't we beyond that? You want some chit chat? Well, whatever you want, Crews. How _are_ you this morning?"

She was getting mad, he could hear it in her tone.

"Forget it. Doesn't count if you don't really mean it.", he grumbled, looking out of the passenger side window.

"No, really. Let's _chat, _Crews_._ How was your weekend? Did you and Ted have fun at Bobby's party?", she looked at him pointedly in the rear view.

_Damn it, Dani_, she thought. For the past three hours she had been telling herself that she should absolutely never bring this up and now, the first chance she got, she had done just the opposite. She really was her own worst enemy. She dug her nails into the wheel and hoped he'd miss the reference or the accusation in her voice.

Charlie felt his insides flinch. Just what had he done wrong? _Let's go through that list again._ Orange peel in the car? _Nope._ Coffee with too much cream? _Naw._ Public, or even private, displays of affection in spite of the unspoken rules? _No._

_Ah, yes, you forgot this last one. _ Drunkenly fooling around with a badge bunny at Bobby's party on Saturday? _Um...Check. _

__Shit. You Idiot.___  
><em>

She knew. He had never confirmed to her that Ted was actually going to Bobby's with him, only that he might ask him along. She had obviously discussed the party with someone. And she now had some crucial details. He had known that it was likely she would find out but he had pushed that thought away. It hadn't taken long for the news to circulate and find its way right back around to the spot opposite his desk.

He regretted the whole thing. It really hadn't been intentional. He and Ted had been having fun at Bobby's, it was nice to hang out and sink a few beers together. Charlie had even just about managed to forget about work and his fixation with his partner for an hour or two. He hadn't realized how much it had been dominating his thoughts until he was momentarily free of it. Ted was in a similar position with Olivia, she was driving him to distraction too, so it had been great to sit back in the sun and just enjoy some straightforward guy-talk about the universe, about kiwi fruit and the definition of something called Relative Strength Index as Ted attempted in vain to explain Charlie's investment portfolio to him. The rule for the day was 'no girl-talk' and they agreed that this suited both of them just fine.

Fast forward three-quarters of an hour and they were both bored, having eaten their fill of burgers and ribs. Ted had already mentioned Olivia four times and had been roundly chastised by his room mate. Charlie had found himself wishing that Reese was there more than once. So when Kathy, Bobby Stark's little sister, introduced her girlfriend Melody and asked if the two of them could join them for a drink, they were more than glad of the distraction and the break from the other's miserable face. Bobby had flashed a death-stare at Charlie from his station at the grill in warning; Kathy was strictly off limits if he didn't want Bobby to chase him with his meat cleaver. Charlie smirked at him from a safe distance; Kathy had decided she was more interested in Ted in any case, forgetting that they had met once before at Charlie's house. In the context of Bobby's party, Kathy had imagined that Ted was police too, maybe even brass due to the fact he was older than Charlie. She liked his authoritative gray hair, he had to be a Sergeant at the very least. Ted did not find it necessary to correct her.

Meanwhile, Charlie chatted amiably with the gorgeous Melody, who was apparently smitten also. He didn't encourage her but the more they drank, the more she laughed at his stupid jokes, the more attractive and available she seemed and the more things with Dani seemed insurmountably complicated in comparison. She had pretty green eyes. They weren't as pretty as Dani's eyes, of course, but Dani didn't want him. Whereas Melody most certainly did. She grabbed his hand as they left Ted and Kathy in the search for more beer and by the time they made it to the huge trash can containing ice cold bottles by the garage she had backed him slowly into the wall and kissed him seductively. Charlie wasn't sure, and was about to make his excuses, but then he figured that it didn't matter, it was just a kiss with a pretty girl at a party. He slowly relaxed into the clinch. When Melody wrapped herself around him and stepped things up a gear, his fate was sealed, his body was responding far faster than his mind and she soothed the frustration that had ratcheted up inside him over the past few months of chastity. When she stepped away from him and tugged him through the open door of the garage, he let himself be led because her lips had fogged his brain and his hands already bemoaned the absence of her hips. Melody turned the key in the door behind them to prevent interruptions, smiled wickedly in the half light and pushed Charlie down onto the old couch that Bobby's wife made him watch ball games on. Charlie's eyelids drooped with lust as she wriggled in his lap but the alarm in his brain still managed to sound when she slid between his legs onto her knees. This had already gone way further than he ever intended. He asked her to stop but she protested with her voice purring irresistible vibrations against his thigh. He hesitated a moment too long. His body won the tussle with his mind, he shot one last glance over at the locked door, gripped the armrest and sighed as the back of his head hit the couch and his eyes lost focus on the garage ceiling.

He had felt guilty almost immediately. He couldn't even allow himself to enjoy the moment, which fucked with his Zen sensibilities and rendered the whole incident pointless in his opinion. He felt like he had been unfaithful, which, he reflected, was ridiculous. He and Dani were not together, probably never would be. Until very recently, she had been sleeping with their boss. That was _way_ worse. He was a single guy, surely Charlie could do as he liked? Except he hadn't even liked it; in the end it had only been the fact that he had grabbed a fist of Melody's hair, which he then noticed was dark and luscious like Dani's, that got him off. Dani haunted him. Worried that Melody would pick up on his reticence, he spent a while with her afterwards so as not to seem impolite and agreed that she should enter her number into his cell so he could call her sometime. He already knew he would never call, he wanted to forget all about it as soon as possible. A short while later, he made his way back to Ted who was once more alone, having lacked the most basic skills of deception required to continue the charade that he was an officer of the law. For a convicted fraudster he was a terrible liar. Kathy had ditched him for a real cop and was fawning over some guy named David Cohen on the far side of the pool. Ted shuffled around under a tree and glumly contemplated calling Olivia to beg her to take him back after their latest spat.

Charlie might have known that it would be all over the station by now, the way his colleagues talked. Really it was a miracle that it had taken until Tuesday for Dani to hear it.

A couple of beats passed as he met her eyes in the mirror. He didn't know for sure what she had heard but he could see that his expression had confirmed what she thought she knew.

"It was fine. Just a party.", he replied quietly.

"Oh yeah? _Just_ a party?", she was going to make him squirm.

"Yeah, you know, people, drinks, music, a cookout. You should have gone."

"I'm not sure I would have enjoyed myself, Crews". Her voice was hard. She was now referring directly to the incident in question and he knew it.

"It would've been different if you had been there...better." He wanted so badly to apologize.

"Huh.", she said and looked away. For a second before she flicked her eyes away he read pain on her face.

Conversation over, they were both silent for the rest of the drive. _Was this a fight they were having? _If it was, it was the weirdest fight he had ever had. He was most definitely sorry. It didn't matter that there was technically nothing to apologize for. She was pissed off, hurt even, and he regretted that; it hadn't been worth it and he wished he could take it back. She obviously cared but they both pretended she didn't and he had obviously hurt her and they had to pretend he hadn't. He was getting sick of living two realities at once, it was exhausting and he couldn't keep up. He wondered how he could make it up to her, he knew Dani was terrible with grudges. She did not forget and she probably wouldn't let him forget either.

Dani parked up outside The Pearl, popped her belt and made to climb out of the car.

Before he had really thought it through he reached over quickly and grabbed her arm to stop her getting out.

"Dani, wait...", he said, unsure of what he wanted her to wait for. He didn't know what he was supposed to say.

Dani went stiff at the contact with his hand and the sound of her first name on his lips and only then did he understand just how upset she was. She glared at him.

"What have I told you about touching me? You don't _get_ to touch me.", she snapped.

Charlie let go immediately and she got out, slamming the door and stalking off towards the strip club.

He sighed deeply and looked to the sky, the habit of a lifetime. He reminded himself that it was the universe that was making fun of him, not a god in heaven. The universe was all around him, it _was_ him. Each moment was the universe.

He took a deep breath. He even pissed himself off sometimes.


	14. Chapter 14

_Jesus_. She was pretty sure he had been about to say something earth-shattering just then in the car.

Dani moved towards the entrance of The Pearl as quickly as she could without breaking into a run. She needed some distance between her and Charlie right now, which was awkward because they had a case to work and were headed to the same place. If she could just get a few seconds ahead of him, she would be able to collect herself and think.

She could still feel where his long fingers had grasped her wrist. He had been ready to break the spell and put it all out there. That was why she should never have challenged him about Bobby's party. He was far too prone to honesty.

Them together? Right now she was pretty sure that was _never_ going to happen. Turned out that Crews was essentially just as much of a jerk as every other guy she had ever met. She cursed herself for letting him see that what he did and who he saw bothered her. Who was she kidding? It more than _bothered_ her. It tore her up inside. She didn't like him having that knowledge and power over her. It hurt her pride.

She could trust him with her life but she couldn't trust him to keep it in his pants. That, right there, was a good enough reason to stay the fuck away, keep things purely professional.

The glaringly obvious point that it had already gone much further than that escaped her for the moment.

Really, it was a good thing this had happened, she told herself. The fact that he had fucked up before they even really got started saved her from having to make the decision. No need to take that leap. It gave her an excuse. She no longer needed to accept that her own near-phobia of putting herself on the line with somebody she actually had feelings for was the real issue. In fact, all her fears had been justified; he could hurt her and he had just proved that he probably would.

She stepped into the dark club. The first thing she saw was the bar. The stools. The array of liquor bottles and the glasses glinting under the spotlights. The optics. Jesus, she could use a drink. She could allow the afternoon to spill into the night there and this mess with Crews would just bleed away. The fact that he was about ten paces behind her and would never let her get away with that killed the thought dead.

Dani asked to speak with the proprietor of the establishment. While she waited, she took a moment to tramp down all the ugly feelings that had suddenly sprung up in her chest since that morning in the locker room. She took a deep breath and smoothed down her clothes. _C'mon Dani. Think LAPD Detective, not woman scorned. _

Within a minute Benji Pearlman stood in front of her, looking her up and down with dollar signs and worse in his eyes.

"Welcome to The Pearl. You looking for work, honey?", he asked with a predatory grin.

"No sir, I'm looking for you.", she replied, flashing her badge.

Dani felt Crews come to stand by her side in silence. She didn't look at him but felt relieved to know that he was there. He could have chosen to stay in the car sulking and ambush her with more awkwardness when she returned. Hopefully this meant that the matter was over with.

Things might not be straightforward between them but as far as the lapdancing empresario was concerned, they looked every bit the united front.


	15. Chapter 15

Benji looked amused that the pretty-pretty girl before him was actually a cop and here to bust his balls in an entirely different kind of way.

"Benji Pearlman. _You_ can ask me anything you like, sweetheart.", he drawled.

Charlie tensed and shot daggers at the short, swarthy clubowner. There was no way he was going to tolerate that kind of attitude towards his partner, even if she did hate him right now.

Benji registered the threat but remained cocky, he dealt with police all the time, they didn't scare him. He was genuinely shocked to hear of the death of Megan O'Mara but she was relatively new to his club and he felt he had little information to offer the Detectives. Benji refuted Reese's insinuation that his establishment was anything other than a lapdance bar; everything was above board and '_his girls_' were not for sale. While his demeanor screamed 'PIMP', he maintained that his employees were 'dancers' and 'artistes'; if they were also hookers then it was nothing to do with him and it absolutely did not take place on his premises. He ran his tongue over his front teeth, satisfied with himself.

Dani found him to be a singularly loathsome character. He thought he was smart. The way he looked at her made her shiver. Benji freely volunteered that his girl Candi, who had been close to Megan, should talk to she and Crews, probably to take the heat off himself. Candi was a pro, he had said, glancing sidelong at Crews, and a beautiful dancer to boot.

"No, Sir. We'd like to talk to _all_ your employees. Starting with Miss Cole.", Dani pressed.

Benji looked irritated. _Fucking police. _

"Fine, Detectives, but this here is a going concern. Time is money and I'm a businessman. We got rehearsals to run. I got a bachelor party booked up for tonight..._big_ money, you know what I'm saying? I can't have you in here causing disruptions. This joint is not about the wham-bam-thank-you-m'am, we're talking serious _choreography_ right here. Can we do this tomorrow maybe?" He waved his hands dismissively.

"Mr Pearlman, you can either let us interview your staff here and now or have them leave to help us with our investigation back at the station. Where they will need to present their papers." Dani raised an eyebrow at him.

Benji considered this option for all of three seconds.

"You can see them here." He relented and gestured to a booth reluctantly. "Just don't get in the way." He frowned at Crews. "And you - keep your hands off the merchandise."

Charlie hadn't yet said one word in his company but Benji could feel the waves of contempt radiating from him. He sent the girl behind the bar to go find Candi, all the while keeping his suspicious eyes on the tall Detective.

Dani asked if she could use the restroom before they got started. As she disappeared towards the back of the club, Charlie worried that maybe she was even more upset with him than he had thought and wondered if it was that bad that she needed to take a moment. He had no idea...he was a fucking idiot, he realized.

"She's your boss, huh?", Benji asked, referring to Dani once she was gone. "She does the talking, you're the muscle. You do as she says?"

"I do. And so will you if you know what's good for you.", Charlie replied, stony-faced.

"Feisty, huh? Spirited? You lucky son of a bitch. I'd do exactly what she said too...but only after _I'd_ cuffed _her_." He rasped the laugh of a thousand Marlboros.

Charlie leant in close to Benji and spoke very softly, almost casually.

"One more comment like that from you and I'll come back here after hours and bounce your skull off every surface in this club, Mr Pearlman."

Benji had heard worse but something about the way Crews' eyes had turned to ice told him that he meant it. He seemed like an unbalanced character and Benji had met plenty of those in his time.

"Whoah there Detective, calm down. All I'm saying is that she's a beautiful woman...", he laughed.

"...who happens to be an officer of the law and my superior." Charlie finished his sentence. Maybe he did have some feminist principles after all, he reflected.

"You keep telling yourself that.", replied Benji, chuckling.

Crews was about to reiterate his point to the sleazy little fucker when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder blade. For a second he found himself hoping that the hand belonged to his partner, that she had calmed down and all was forgiven.

"Hi there, officer.", the voice behind him purred. Charlie turned around to greet the voice and was faced with a woman with a bright smile, wearing nothing but full make-up, a red satin thong and break-neck heels.

"I hear you asked for me? I don't _think_ we've met before? I'm always happy to help a police officer. It's kind of early but I guess you guys work shifts. It's so important to kick back and relax, don't you think? Can I get you a drink before we get comfortable?" She licked her bottom lip at him.

Charlie's eyebrows shot skywards.

She looked him up and down, taking in his expensive suit, the well-crafted loafers, the strap of his watch that glinted under the sleeve of his jacket. She scanned his face and decided that he didn't look tense, or violent, or mean. This guy might be an easy first dance of the day, even if she wasn't really due to start work until 3pm, she'd make an exception for a clean-looking client who looked like he could tip as well as Charlie did. She was always on the look-out for guys like this. If she treated him real nice and gave him just the right amount of encouragement it could even become a regular thing. Better him than some of the jerks she danced for.

Charlie had seen Dani slip out of the bathroom and creep beyond a tacky red curtain at the back of the room. She wasn't upset, he realized, he shouldn't flatter himself; she had just been looking for an excuse to go poke around the club. His job had been to keep Benji busy.

Benji grinned lasciviously, defying Crews not to be flustered by the beautiful, near nude woman standing before him. He sniggered, "Fill your boots, Detective." as he wandered off, knowing that for all Crews' bullshit defense of his partner as his 'superior officer', a great pair of tits and a sweet little ass like Candi's would work their magic on the Detective as much as the next guy.

"Detective, huh?", the woman feigned an impressed look. Flattery, and that great ass of hers, generally got her everywhere.

"Detective Charlie Crews.", he confirmed. "What's your name, Miss?", he smiled, fighting valiantly with the male impulse to look at her breasts.

"Candi. Candi Cole.", she offered him her hand and he took it. Candi was accustomed to being naked and she even found it empowering in a one-on-one situation. Especially with a figure of authority. Their desire generally cut them down to size put her in control. She had never failed to transfix a guy with her body, whether he was wearing a badge or not, so long as he was straight. Charlie would be no different, she thought. She had danced for plenty of cops before. However, his handshake was so businesslike that Candi started to suspect that he wasn't there for pleasure and felt deflated that the big tip she had imagined might not wind up tucked inside the band of her thong by the end of their encounter as she had hoped.

At that moment Dani stumbled back through the curtain to see Crews across the room engaged in polite conversation with a naked stripper.

"Fuck's sake, Crews...", she muttered to herself.

She did not welcome the harsh flash of jealousy she felt at the mere sight of him in the stripper's presence. She was getting to know the green-eyed monster real well lately, she mused. She needed to get a grip.

Charlie began to take his jacket off as Dani approached them. Candi was pleased that he seemed to be making himself comfortable as she had suggested. Her face fell as he handed it to her just as Dani drew up to where they stood. The two women exchanged hostile looks.

Dani was determined to hide her animosity towards the nude woman talking to her man. The realization that she considered Charlie _hers, _and that she would have been inclined to scratch this woman's eyes out if this had been anything but a work situation, stung her deep as she tried to school her expression to 'neutral'.

"What, you're together?", Candi glanced between them. The proprietary glint in Dani's eyes hadn't been lost on her. "Is this like a kink with you guys? Am I dancing for you or for her?"

Charlie ignored her. "Would you like to borrow my jacket?", he asked, his voice warm and kind.

"No, I'm good thanks. It doesn't bother me.", Candi shrugged, now sure that this was a business call, defying him with her eyes. If she could unnerve him with her bare skin, she would. She was a tough cookie.

"I'm sure it doesn't. But it's just a work thing, right? Like a uniform but in reverse? And what I need to talk to you about is of a personal nature. I wouldn't expect to interview an astronaut in his space helmet..." Charlie reasoned.

Despite him being clean and clearly having money, this guy was a little weird, the dancer concluded, as she reluctantly took his jacket. She looked unsure as she slipped her arms through the sleeves and it drowned her petite frame. Robbed of the power of raw flesh and sex appeal, she suddenly felt as small as the tall Detective's jacket made her look.

"This is my partner, Detective Dani Reese.", Charlie introduced. "And this is...", he looked to the young woman to complete his sentence.

"Candi Cole.", she repeated for Dani's benefit.

"And if your grandmother was here right now? What name would she call you by?", Charlie asked.

The light was low and artificial but Dani was sure she saw Candi pale. Her expression fell on hearing Crews' question.

"Katie Wolfenden.", she said simply, off guard and frowning at the left-field mention of her grandma. She worried that something had happened back home and the police had tracked her down here.

"Okay Katie, let's take a seat.", Charlie gestured to the booth.

In just two moves he had wiped away her bravado, her stripper's veneer, and the girl who obidiently took a seat in the booth with them was a vastly different creature to the one who had been standing before Crews with her legs parted provocatively just two minutes beforehand.

_Deftly done_, thought Reese, she was full of admiration for her partner despite herself. Sometimes it paid to let him do the talking. Now that the stripper had truly been stripped, they might actually get some cooperation.

Within minutes, Katie the lapdancer was in tears. Megan had been her friend and although she denied that either of them had slept with men for money, the risks associated with their line of work seemed to be hitting home. She was just a middle class girl from a good home paying her way through college by dancing part time. Waiting tables was beginning to seem like the better option all of a sudden. By the time she shrugged off Crews' jacket and left their booth, all her sass had gone and she would be of no use to Benji tonight. Reese and Crews waited for the next dancer to come out for questioning.

"Nice work.", Dani complimented him as he scribbled something in his notebook. She needed to pretend that everything was fine between them and anyway, she had been genuinely impressed at the way he had disarmed the formidable Candi Cole. "Why did you bring her grandmother into it?"

"Nobody likes to think of their grandmother when they're doing something that they are ashamed of.", he replied simply. Crews knew this from personal experience.

"How did you know that she was ashamed of what she does here?"

"Oh, because of the stage name. Megan didn't use one on her business card but _Candi_ _Cole_ just sounds made up, like a centerfold or something. She was either very professional or seeking anonymity. I took a bet it was the latter."

"Huh.", Dani nodded at him. She was still hurt and mad at him but who was she kidding? She knew she wouldn't be for long. She knew she was damaged goods and if there was one thing she couldn't resist, it was a guy who hurt her. Same impulse as the bottle, a form of self harm. Plus, she thought, he was unique and very smart and kind of pretty. _Dani Reese__, you are a monumental fuck-up_, she told herself.

"And she's lying - about the prostitution I mean. She's a student and she hasn't been dancing long enough to afford those breast implants on tips alone.", he said, matter-of-fact.

"How do you know they are implants? Crews, were you checking her out?" Dani accused him, arching her brow.

She didn't sound pissed, she was teasing him. He sensed that the ice between them might be thawing and he thanked the universe.

"I was not checking her out, Reese. I'm a Detective, I was..._detecting._", he exclaimed innocently.

For a second there he had her smiling and it made him feel like a million dollars to be back in that place again. The realization that he could damage things so easily reminded him why they were dancing around the fact that something big but very fragile had happened, _was happening_, between them in the first place. For that short period today when he worried that she would never speak to him again, he had been as afraid as he had been when Nevikov had taken her. That he might have shaken her trust in him made him feel ill. If he had been in any doubt before, he now knew that she was thinking about him in _that_ way, perhaps just as much as he thought of her. He was now assured that there was a new unwritten rule in the invisible book: absolutely no fooling around with other women. That was okay; he only wanted to fool around with Dani anyway, Melody had been an accident. Did all this mean that they were kind of 'together'? Or did her finding out about Melody mean they weren't 'together' any longer? Shit; had she considered them_ '_together' all this time without him even knowing it? He couldn't believe he had been so stupid as to jeopardize it, even if sitting by her side making her laugh was as close to loving her as he would ever be allowed.

He was lost, staring at her, going through all of this in his mind and pondering the definition of 'together' when the sound system erupted into life and the lights changed from blue to red to orange and back. Rehearsals were starting, which may have explained why they were still waiting for their next interviewee. He watched the different colored lights flash onto her face from different angles casting weird shadows, making her look like a different woman every time. Each one of them was devastatingly beautiful.

Dani was acutely aware of his eyes on her and the totally _gone_ expression on his face. She decided to indulge him for a while, enjoying his attention. Whoever the slut in Bobby's garage had been, she wasn't here now and even if she was, Dani wasn't sure that he would even have noticed. Three semi-clad dancers had stalked onto the stage just in front of them. Crews didn't even look up, arrested as he was by Dani's lips turning blue, then orange, then green like some psychedelic wet dream.

"So, what are they?", she asked him in a low voice, almost flirtatiously.

"What are what?", his eyes flicked up to hers, delighted that he could no longer hear any frost in her tone.

"The things you've done that you're ashamed of. The ones you wouldn't want your grandmother hearing about?", Dani smirked.

The girls on stage began to take their clothes off, gyrating provocatively and stepping up to the very edge of the stage close to Reese and Crews. Dani looked at them as if she was tired already of their spectacle, no amount of grinding could shock her. _Please_. Charlie kept his eyes fixed on his partner's face and did not flinch for one second. He knew they were there of course, but he was focused on Dani and proving a point to her, making amends. _If you were mine, I wouldn't even look at another woman, I swear it_, he willed his eyes to say.

Something about the intent way he was looking at her made her shiver involuntarily. She saw his eyes twinkle mischief then dull with bloodshed as he considered his response.

"There are too many to mention.", his lips actually said.

"Don't be evasive, Crews.", she chided. "Can it be that bad?"

For a second his face was deadly serious, as he actually thought about telling her some very dark things indeed.

"If it makes you feel any better, I could never tell my grandma either.", he chose to joke about it.

Reese raised her eyebrows in mock indignation. "Is that how you see me? In the same category as your grandma?"

"You have the same temperament as my grandma did," he laughed, "but in other regards...most definitely not."

And then he couldn't help it, the world as good as stopped and he fought against the lump forming in his throat. Thinking about the category he _would_ put her in. One all of her own. God, he loved her. _This is inappropriate_, he thought, he didn't want to do this here and now in a dingy club at a sticky table. But he couldn't stop looking at her.

Dani had been eye-fucked a thousand times but this was something else. She couldn't bear to hold his gaze. He was so intense it made her feel uncomfortable. She blushed and thanked her lucky stars that it was dark in there. There were topless women show kissing on stage and he was acting oblivious. Had he moved closer? It felt like he had moved closer. Had someone turned off the air con? Jesus, she couldn't take it. She bowed her head to break contact with his eyes but he wouldn't let her, he dipped his head too in hot pursuit, looking right at her, seeing right through all her defensive bullshit.

She had no place to run to this time. She dug her fingernails into her thigh underneath the table top. _What if I just stop running now?_ _For once?_ She looked back at him. It was too dark to see exactly but it looked like his crazy blue irises had vanished, he was all dilated pupil, as if he had taken something dangerously interesting. For a few lingering seconds she joined him in his trance.

_I could kiss you now. And then what?_, they both thought in silent unison.

"What's up Detectives?", a bawdy bottle-blonde stood before them, thankfully wearing more clothes than the last witness.

Crews and Reese sprang apart as if they had been scalded, cleared their throats and looked the dancer up and down.

_All in a day's work_, Charlie said to himself.


	16. Chapter 16

Charlie pressed the heel of his palm to his eye socket and gasped. It hurt like a motherfucker and he sucked air through his teeth dramatically as his eye watered all over the cuff of his shirt. He searched for Kleenex in the glove compartment.

"Owwwww, Reese. Was that _really_ necessary?!", he moaned.

It had been a long and confusing day. Interviewing Benji Pearlman's troop of scantily clad dancers had taken hours and Dani had spent the moments in between avoiding Charlie's determined gaze. All in all, it had been hard work.

They had made some headway on the case. The employees of the strip club were a fractious bunch and Reese had been quick to exploit this. It seemed that The Pearl was scene to open warfare over the attentions of certain clients, clients who would provide the focus of the next phase of their investigation. _But please God not tonight_, Dani had thought, realizing that she was weary, getting cranky and just wanted to go home and get into her tub.

By the time they left The Pearl their eyes had acclimatized to the neon-lit gloom of the club and as the small lobby's double doors swung open onto the parking lot, the daylight of late afternoon stung and disoriented the Detectives, making Dani stumble slightly.

Benji was eagerly shooing them out of there, keen to prevent them snooping further. Dani walked on a couple of paces ahead, pleased to be leaving. Crews walked alongside Benji, watching him carefully out of the corner of his eye. Under an impassive surface he was tense, Dani's trained eye could tell he was wound tight about something. Wasn't hard to figure out what, she thought. Benji's eyes were firmly planted on Reese's behind and he didn't care if she knew it. He figured he was in the clear since the cops were leaving and he was relieved, but even so he couldn't resist baiting Crews.

"So long Detectives. It's been great having you visit. Drop by again sometime soon, Detective Reese, ask for me personally. And you know, if the whole law enforcement gig doesn't work out for you, we could easily find a position for you at The Pearl. We'd be _real_ happy to have you..."

She was in no mood for this. Dani turned on her heel, intending to put the little weasel in his place. She must have paused to blink however, because before she could act Benji was half way up the wall making a surprised yelping sound, toes desperately scraping the linoleum, his body supported only by Crews' viscious grip around his throat.

"I warned you, Pearlman.", growled Charlie, the genuine menace in his eyes penetrated Benji's and real fear set in as the club owner spluttered and thrashed against the wall.

Benji half spoke, half mouthed a few indecipherable words in supplication or apology - nobody could tell which. _Prick_. Charlie couldn't resist the urge to squeeze even harder to teach the little fucker a lesson. Dani saw his knuckles whitening and fairly jumped out of her skin.

"Crews!", she barked.

One word from her and Charlie came to, the muscles in his arms went slack, the mist behind his eyes evaporated and he let Benji down. This was going to cause him a world more strife from Reese, he knew it, but he just couldn't help himself. Benji slumped against the wall, seeing blue dots and gasping for breath, Crews towering over him, still standing close enough to intimidate.

"Psycho! You can't do that. I'll sue!", croaked Benji clutching his throat.

"And I'll book you for disorderly conduct. We'll take you in right now, if that's the way you want it. But Crews will be the one putting you in cuffs. He's kind of clumsy sometimes...", threatened Dani.

Benji cast a glance at Crews and cowed a little. _Fucking cops._

"No? I thought not. Good afternoon, Mr Pearlman. Thank you for your cooperation." Dani smiled a plastic smile, put on her shades and stepped out into the light.

For the second time that day Dani marched on ahead of Charlie into the parking lot. He could tell by the way she moved that once again, she was furious. Something about the way she held her shoulders.

"Reese! Wait!", Charlie called, chasing up to her.

Dani bit her lip, span around fast as lightening and launched forward with her right fist, missing Charlie's cheek by centimeters. He let out a slight chuckle, mostly in relief, which only served to incense her more and prompted her to follow up with another blow, which she intended to bring down hard on his chest. Charlie saw this one coming but imagined it was aimed at his head again, he ducked, managing to put his face in the line of fire once more. She caught him in the eye. He staggered backwards, not quite losing his footing, the awkward spot she had caught him having more impact than the jab itself.

Dani was immediately sorry, she hadn't meant to hurt him all that much but her general level of frustration with her partner over the whole _Bobby's garage_ incident plus her ire at the out-of-control way he had attacked Benji Pearlman had made for a harder punch than she realized. She skipped forward involuntarily to tend to him before her natural stubbornness set in and she span back around and stomped off to the car, leaving the tall Detective reeling in the parking lot clutching his eye.

A couple of minutes passed before he sloped back to the car and crashed into the passenger seat grumbling.

She felt bad but she wasn't about to back down.

"What was that for?!", he asked innocently.

"You really need to ask? I thought you were through pulling crazy shit like that. Benji only has to report you and you'll be in deep shit, Crews. Again."

"He deserved it. You should have heard the way he was talking about you."

"I do not need you to protect me. I can handle myself." She spoke very slowly and deliberately. One of these days he would actually listen. He made her mad as hell.

"Yeah. _Evidently_." Charlie dabbed at his eye some more.

Secretly hoping he was making a fuss about nothing, she bent forward to take a look, praying that she wouldn't have to bring him to the ER for a fractured eye socket.

"Let me see."

Reluctantly he pulled his handkerchief away and allowed her to inspect him. He would have loved her to fuss over him, even though she was the one who caused the injury in the first place.

"No, you're good. It's not serious. It's gonna bruise up nice though.", she concluded.

"Well, it _feels_ pretty serious! Are you going to apologize?!", he asked, incredulous.

He was really going to milk this, she thought. But she did feel bad. His eye was streaming.

"I'm sorry I hurt your eye.", she said, reluctantly.

He detected something partial, something begrudging in her apology.

"But not that you hit me?"

"Nope. You deserved that." She couldn't help but smile a little that he had noticed her half-ass apology and refusal to accept that she had been in the wrong.

"Right. Just so we're clear." He looked her. There was nothing he could do about the way she was. He wouldn't change her for the world. He let out a helpless laugh and shook his head.

"We're clear.", she confirmed, knowing that 'clear' was the last word she would use to describe things between them.

"So maybe you'll buy me pizza to make up for it.", he chanced. It was worth a try.

"I'm not going to a pizza parlour, Crews. All I want right now is to hear the sound of my apartment door swinging shut on the world for the day."

"Sounds good to me. We can call out for pizza." He persisted. It was worth a shot.

"And when that door shuts, _you_ will be on the other side of it.", she clarified.

Except she knew that wasn't true. Because he was inside her head and she took him everywhere she went.


	17. Chapter 17

God knows she had tried to put the day behind her.

She ran a bath. Extra bubbles, just for a treat. Since she had been home she had sorted her laundry, downed a glass of ice water, called her mother and poked around in the refrigerator to see if there were enough ingredients for a sensible meal. But her thoughts kept returning to Crews.

She felt a fool. She had inadvertently shown her hand today by letting him see her jealousy. Emotional incontinence. Despite their tacit pact not to talk about it,_ 'it' _was now leaking from them and spilling out all over the place. Her outrage over his sex life. His aggression towards Benji Pearlman. Their attraction. It was all getting harder to contain.

When he had stared her down in that club he lit up a constellation of tiny fires all over her body. Hours later and she could still feel them glowing, an imaginary line connecting all the hotspots between her ankles and earlobes hummed like the wire on an electric fence. She sank into the tub hoping that the water would extinguish the sensation so that she could regain some control. If anything, it only made her worse. She dunked her head under the water to punish herself for having imagined him at the opposite end of the bathtub, smiling wickedly, beginning to trace that same line with his fingers. First she dreamt him, now she was hallucinating him. And she wasn't even doing drugs any more.

She used to consider Crews too _nice_ for her. She realized that she had thought about it long before she ever discovered that she had feelings for him. Maybe that was natural, him being a guy and her being a girl and all. She had dismissed the idea immediately anyway, considering her partner the type of man who would bring his girlfriend candy and flowers. He would be considerate and gentle in bed, he would never forget their anniversary and he would never leave the toilet seat up. Dani didn't know why she didn't want any of those things; they seemed to be characteristics in a lover that would appeal to most women. But Dani didn't do _nice_. Tidwell had been the closest thing to _nice_ that she had ever known and that hadn't worked out so well. Maybe deep down she thought she didn't deserve _nice_. But that was all before she knew him. Before she knew that there was much more to him than just _nice_.

She wondered if anyone could say that they really knew him at all. He had done stuff, seen stuff - of that much she was sure. There were things he wasn't proud of, he had as good as said so, but it had been an entirely different existence in prison; the path life set him on had required him to become an entirely different version of himself. He couldn't just put that all away now that he was free again. It was in him for good, just under the surface, liable to bubble over like lava if he was provoked. Maybe if none of that had ever happened he would just be nice, sweet, decent Charlie Crews. But it had happened and now he had this extra dimension. This is what intrigued her. He had a dark edge to him and while she hated to admit it, it turned her on. She had seen him snap, watched him hurt people; hell, she had even been kind of responsible for him killing a man. Crews' capacity for violence shocked her, given the way he behaved the rest of the time. He was compassionate but lethal, sweet but sharp. His river ran deep and she found that she didn't just want to screw him, she wanted to know him too. Both things together was rare for her. If she wasn't mistaken it felt a lot like love.

The hologram Crews at the end of her tub raised a mischievous eyebrow and began to scoot up towards her. She closed her eyes, slid her hands up her thighs and imagined her fingers were his.

So much for her quiet evening at home alone.

She mopped up the water that had lapped over the side of the tub when she kicked out in pleasure. For a figment of her imagination, the apparition she shared the bath with sure had skills. Having wished for an evening of quiet solitude, she now felt at a loss and she found herself wishing that she had agreed to buy Crews dinner after all. Her mouth hosted a goofy smile as she imagined him trying to cram an entire slice of pizza into his mouth in one go and dripping margherita sauce all over his tie. She would have asked for extra olives on hers and they would have had a good-natured argument about whether they counted as fruit. She would win, of course.

"Jesus Christ, Dani, c'mon!", she threw a hand towel to the floor and yelled out in frustration with herself, the sound bouncing off the walls of her small but empty apartment.

She had no time for this kind of lovestruck mooning when she saw other people doing it and she found it equally as pathetic now she caught herself engaged in the very same nonsense. Yeah, she loved him. Reluctantly. Didn't mean she had to be a dick about it.

She lolled around wrapped in her towel, unable to banish him from her mind. In her bedroom she stared at her cell phone, trying to summon the self control to leave it on the nightstand. But she always did have trouble with impulses.

'_How is the eye?_', she texted.

She stretched out on her bed. Her phone beeped back at her inside a minute.

'_Black_.', he replied.

'_Feeling sorry for yourself?_' Her.

'_A little. How sorry are YOU feeling?_' Him.

'_I'm feeling sorry for you too_.' Her.

'_Let me guess. Because I'm a psycho, right? Or because you hurt my eye? But not because you hit me._' Him.

'_All three. I'm sorry_.' Her.

'_Wow, Reese. Apology accepted. But it's not enough. Buy me pizza?_' Him.

'_Not tonight, it's late_.' Her.

'_But one day soon?_' Him.

'_One day_.' Her.

She grinned like a moron and put her phone back by the side of the bed.


	18. Chapter 18

She said she was going to buy him pizza. He punched the air. Everyone knew what _that_ meant. It meant that his chances of getting some pizza were higher now than they had been yesterday afternoon when she slammed the car door on him for fooling around with a stranger. That thought made his heart soar.

He hadn't been exaggerating when he told her his eye was black. It was also green, pink and purple.

"Oh shhhhiiii...", she wheezed when she first saw him in the office that morning, looking guilty all of a sudden.

"Looks worse than it is.", he smiled weakly.

Tidwell hurtled past their desks and then backtracked just as quick until he stood between them. "Oh Jeez, Crews, what now? What happened?"

"Looks worse than it is.", Crews repeated. He would be saying that a lot today.

"Do I need to be worried about what happened to the other guy?", Tidwell looked apprehensive, the last thing he needed was another shitstorm with Crews at the center of it.

"No, Captain. The other guy's just fine. It was just an accident." Reese and Crews exchanged conspiratorial a look across the bank of desks.

"He's just too tall and too much of a clutz for his own good.", Dani stepped in.

Tidwell looked at Reese and was half won over, distracted by how good she looked this morning. He still missed her and he hoped she knew that.

"Is that right? You're sure you don't need to file an incident report?", Tidwell was suspicious of these two with good reason. They were tricky.

"Yeah, Crews, write it up. Maybe we should go on back to that swing door and book it. That's assaulting a police officer, right there. You can't let that shit go. Have some self respect!", she smirked.

Tidwell missed her tiny frame in his arms but he wasn't sure that he missed her sarcasm.

"Well, just...just be careful, huh? Do me a favor and stay out of trouble, will you?", Tidwell was satisfied, kind of. He took one last, longing look at his ex-girlfriend and wandered off to his office.

Damn, she was good. Dani leaned back in her chair, pleased with herself. "_Thank you_, _Reese_.", she coached her partner.

"You want me to thank you now? This was all you, _remember_?!", Crews whispered across the desk and pointed at his battered eye.

"Oh, let's not get started again on who caused this...", she warned him.

It appeared that her apology only went so far. He decided to quit while he was ahead.

She wore her hair up today. Charlie didn't know what the style was called, he guessed it was just a kind of loose bun secured by a long, tortoiseshell clip, but he really liked it. He wondered if he should compliment her but thought better of it. _Too much. Be cool, _he told himself. Who needed a corner office with a view across the park when he had this to stare at all day? And stare he did, despite himself.

Dani bent forward reading a file. She was absorbed and he watched the furrows in her brow as she concentrated, the end of her pen between her front teeth. _Oh, to be that_ _pen_. He paid particular attention to the back of her neck, he didn't see it often. She caught him looking twice, and twice he made up stupid questions to ask her in order to excuse the staring. But he couldn't stop. He was fantasizing about pressing his lips to the skin just below her hairline at her nape, daydreaming of feeling the heat of her skin against his cheek, slipping his aching arms around her waist. He wondered if he could make her squirm with pleasure under his touch, what he could whisper into her ear to get her to turn to him and let him kiss her.

He was working up a head of steam and he wondered if she knew it. It was only 10am. Too early for this. She seemed lost in thought and absently reached behind her head and twirled her finger around the errant strands of wavy hair that had worked free of the clip. Such an innocent gesture but such a profound effect on his body. She fiddled slowly and it felt like she was teasing him deliberately. He watched her eyes scanning text on her PC screen. She couldn't know what she was doing to him, he decided. Then she let go of the wisp of hair but slowly trailed the back of her fingernail over her skin, lazily tickling her neck as she read. _Ugh_. _Stop already_. It was just about enough to finish him off. He groaned inwardly and snapped his eyes away; it was all too much. Oblivious, Dani finally seemed to register his agitation, looking up to see what the problem was. She concluded that he was just being weird for a change.

Charlie sprang to his feet and made for the water cooler in an attempt to walk it off. She was killing him, she really was.


	19. Chapter 19

Charlie sat on the back stoop and looked out into the trees, watching the branches sway insouciantly in the breeze. He hung his head low and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had known real darkness in his lifetime and he knew that it operated on a scale with limits practically unimaginable to most minds. Today he felt like he had plumbed the depths. He would later freely admit that he cried a couple of tiny tears in that back yard as he waited for Dani to arrive at the scene, wanting so much to see her but also wishing he could spare her. Zen couldn't explain some things in the universe and when it failed to help him make sense of the big things like this, he wondered why he bothered with it at all.

It was his birthday. The day had started out well enough. He had turned up to work with a spring in his step and arrived just around the time that the store delivered the trays of fresh fruit he had ordered for his co-workers to celebrate. Most people brought donuts on their birthday. Not Crews. He cheerfully surveyed the array of papaya, guava, mango, pineapple and orange. He had gone to the trouble of supplying little plastic forks. His colleagues were mostly perplexed by the spectacle but put it down to typical screwy Crews behavior. They helped themselves anyway, like in most offices people would always avail themselves of free food, no matter what it was, rather than get on with genuine work. The change from carbs and sugar was actually kind of refreshing, they remarked. Crews was satisfied.

Dani was mortified. She had forgotten his birthday. He always made a big deal of hers, so she felt like she should at least have got him a gift or something. What would she have got him anyway? The man who could have _everything_ but didn't want anything because he would say he already had all he needed. He would find a more Zen way of saying it, but that would be what he meant. He had looked so pleased to see her that morning too. She felt like she had let him down by not remembering. So she resolved to at least be nice to him all day. She made sure he saw her eat some papaya. That would please him, she knew. During a quiet moment around the newly-established fruit station he had set up in the meeting room, she even dared lay her hand on his arm when she wished him a happy birthday. She noticed him noticing that she had touched him. A tiny, quiet, thoughtful smile graced his lips and eyes as she looked at him unguarded for a second. The moment surpassed any amount of candles and ribbons she could have festooned him with but it was short-lived when another loud gaggle of coworkers arrived for their birthday fruit. Two of the group were female and had also come to claim excessive birthday hugs and kisses. Dani seethed silently and dug her plastic fork into her palm as she looked on. Once he managed to extricate himself from their attentions to turn back to his partner, he found her gone.

Later on that day, Dani had gone across town to return some evidence packs booked out of the stores. It wouldn't take two of them and besides, she wanted to grab some lunch and maybe a little something for Crews on the way back so she had gone alone. With a roll of her eyes she had promised to bring him the 'birthday pomegranate' from the fruit guy just like he asked, wondering how he would react if she actually brought him a burrito for lunch instead. The call for a double homicide in a quiet neighborhood in an unremarkable part of town had come through when she had been gone ten minutes and he headed out alone, agreeing to meet her at the address as soon as she could get there.

There was a rare chill in the air and he shivered slightly as he sat on the stoop._ Happy birthday, Charlie_. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

"You okay?", she asked.

He opened his eyes to see her boots in front of him in the dirt. His eyes ran up her jeans, over her body, to finally come to rest on her concerned face, all without a single sexual thought in his head for a change. It was good just to see her.

"Not really.", he answered with a grimace. "A kid.", he added in explanation, nodding towards the door.

"Oh.", said Dani grimly. Nobody liked cases involving kids. "I'll go on through and take a look then, I guess.", she looked apprehensively at the forensic suits buzzing around inside the house.

"Want me to come up with you?", he offered weakly.

She could tell he didn't really want to. "No, I'm good. Take a break.", she replied. If it had shaken Crews then it must be bad, she reflected.

"Here, I'll hold your coffee." He reached out and took her cup. _She won't be needing that_, he thought. "I'll be right up in a minute."

She hadn't seen him like this in a while. They hadn't had a call for a kid in a while either, she guessed. A lot of their cases were sad but child murders were by far the most testing. The Seyboldt case had involved a child, she recalled. Charlie had had to sit through the details of that particular murder, of the child he was an uncle to, in court during his trial. He was convicted of it. His mother had died before he was exonerated of it. He had to have wondered if she went to her grave truly believing that her son was capable of such a thing. No wonder he was a little messed up, she thought. Dani never said anything to him but she was careful around him when they worked child cases. She bore it in mind when he turned quiet and distant.

Dani steeled herself and strode through the house, imagining she was bulletproof, imagining that nothing could touch her. Mental preparation. She ascended the staircase, reached the room where all the activity was, gloved up and took a deep breath.

A child's bedroom. Little girl. Miniature closet, little purple armchair, low level bookshelves. Homicides that took place within a child's environment, within the innocence and joy of the primary colors, always seemed so shockingly obscene. Dani approached the bed. The forensic team's camera bulb beeped and flashed. On the bed lay a child in a fairy dress, all organza and sparkle, recumbent with her magic wand still in hand. She looked liked she was sleeping, or maybe acting Sleeping Beauty, her dark wavy hair framing her pretty face with little pink budded lips. She was perfect, but also pale and dead, arrested in time and space. She would never grow old, grow ugly, grow capable of wilfully hurting another person. Around her on the bed were stuffed toys, her favourite things arranged just so, her bed resembling a shrine that people would visit and pay tribute to.

And then next to her was the contrast. Adult male, gunshot wound to head, entry point under the chin, apparently self-inflicted. A mess, pieces of blood, cerebellum and chips of bone everywhere. Crimson ooze soaking into the sheets and the little girl's fairy dress, ruining her otherwise serene countenance. The whole scene was horrific. Both the result and the imagining of the actions that led up to it. Little wonder Crews had looked so stricken outside.

There was something so terribly tragic about it. Dani just stood there and kept her eyes fixed on the little girl. She gulped back the lump in her throat as she felt Crews come to a halt beside her.

"Jeannie Harris. Four years old.", said Charlie. "Fairy princess.", he added solemnly.

Dani looked at him and felt a stab of pain when their eyes met. "And him?", she asked resentfully.

"Robert Harris, thirty eight years old. Her father. Almost certainly her murderer."

"Bastard.", whispered Dani, with venom.

Charlie sighed again, realizing that he wanted to get this done and get out of there as fast as possible. "So. He killed Jeannie, laid her out, maybe even changed her clothes, and then offed himself right next to her."

Dani peered over at the little girl. "No marks suggestive of throttling, strangulation, no blows to the head..."

"Bloodshot eyes consistent with suffocation. Probably with a pillow.", he confirmed sadly. He had already looked her over and discussed it with the chief forensic officer on scene before she had arrived. There was little left for Dani to do here but support him, she saw.

He winced as he looked over at his partner. "She fought him, Reese, she scratched him and she looks like she has skin under her little fingernails. She fought hard. But she was only four."

"And he was a grown man.", she finished, her voice dripping with hatred.

Crews looked like he was about to cry, his eyes flushing a deeper blue. It took her aback and she fought the urge to go to him and touch him. She stared ahead at Jeannie instead because somehow that was less painful than looking directly at him right now. She was surprised at just how protective she felt towards him.

"Why would anyone do this?", Dani asked, more to herself in utter disbelief than as a genuine question to Crews.

The way the child had been laid out, so lovingly, with such care shown to ensure that she had all her favourite toys around her, her books, just as if she was packing for a long journey, was heartbreaking. He had made sure Jeannie was clasping her fairy wand. It seemed like her Dad had loved her. So for him to show such extreme violence, to snuff her out aged four, was all the more horrifying.

They continued their investigation, working swiftly but thoroughly, both wanting justice for the little girl but knowing that the perpetrator could never be punished. They worked hard all afternoon until their shoulders drooped with the sorrow of it all.

The grandmother had discovered the bodies and she and Jeannie's mom were being treated for shock and being sedated. People were taking care of them. The detectives would have to wait a couple of days maybe to interview them. They were kind of glad they wouldn't have to face it right away.

Crews and Reese sat in the car. Jeannie's maternal uncle was in a fit state to talk, so they were on their way over to him to see what he could offer.

"Depression? Drugs? Money worries?", Dani suggested.

"Punishment.", said Crews later, "This is what this is all about." He narrowed his eyes.

Crews' hunch did indeed turn out to be right. According to the uncle, news of his sister's affair with a colleague had just recently broken. Her husband Robert had been devastated and all the indications were that he had retaliated in the worst imaginable way.

She slammed the car door and threw herself into the driver's seat roughly after they were through with the uncle . "Spite.", Dani summed it up, shaking her head.

Crews nodded. "Look what we had. Look what _you_ had. Look how perfect she was, look what we had to live for. _You_ did this. _Your affair_ caused this. Was he worth it?" He grimaced. "Motherfucker." He looked at Dani intensely. "He wanted the mom to find them. The way Jeannie was all laid out? All designed to cause maximum damage to her. Payback. Thank God she didn't see it."

She hadn't heard Charlie refer to God like that before, she had only ever heard the crazy Zen quips.

"So fucking cruel. Fucking male pride...", Dani was furious and she didn't know what to do with it. Had Robert Harris lived she surely would have let Crews beat the shit out of _him_ on the way to the station. Hell, she would have helped him do it.

They drove back to the scene in silence to allow Charlie to collect his car and went back to the office to file the preliminary reports. The mood was pretty sombre. They would have to conclude interviews in the following days and it would soon be over but they both knew that this one would live with them for a while.

Dani looked up after a a few minutes when she noticed that Crews' keyboard had stopped its slow clacking. He was staring into space, looking dejected. He was lost in thought about the men in prison he had known who had committed comparable crimes to Robert Harris. _May they rot_, he thought. _Not very_ _Zen_, _Charlie,_ he replied to himself. _Fuck Zen_, he concluded.

"Beat?", she asked him.

He nodded, not very talkative tonight, she noticed. On his birthday, too.

"Shall we call it a night?", she cocked her head at him.

Charlie nodded and began to move to gather his jacket and phone ready to leave. She realized that she wanted to make him feel better and that was why she had suggested he go home but then quickly recognized the pang that meant she didn't really want him to leave.

"Hey, are you hungry?", she asked him, relieved when his eyes suddenly changed to betray his interest. Food always worked with him, no matter what the circumstances.

"Sure. Are you buying?", he replied.

"No. But I'm cooking. Want to come over?"

So he was invited to her place. Finally. He never thought this day would come. He couldn't imagine her cooking, much less cooking for him - _taking care of him_. He felt pretty down after a shitty day but this promised to cheer him up. He grinned at her and nodded enthusiastically.

Damn, that smile was charming.

Dani wasn't entirely sure what she was doing, she only knew that she wanted him around this evening. She wanted to be comfortable, in her home where she could lock it all out, but she wanted him there with her too. Where she could keep an eye on him. She was surprised how much it had hurt her seeing him upset. She found it hard to process situations like today. It would truly sink in later with her whereas it had hit him immediately. She suppressed things and brooded on them, that was her problem. There was little point in ever talking about stuff like this, those who understood were few and far between anyway. Assaulting a punchbag at the gym was an option but she was far too tired for that. Downing the best part of a bottle of vodka would definitely help, but those days were gone, she reminded herself firmly. Quiet companionship with Crews like she secretly enjoyed on stake-outs could work, she considered.

Half an hour later, she was on her way home with Charlie tailgating her in his sportscar behind.


	20. Chapter 20

He might have known she wouldn't cook.

What she had meant by _"I'm cooking"_ was that she had leftovers in her refrigerator that her mother had donated. Dani had a microwave and this is what constituted cooking for her. It was better than pizza. And he was grateful just to be there. He didn't want to spend what remained of his birthday alone thinking about the events of the day.

It was weird being in her home, looking around at her things, the objects she shared the space with, imagining her pottering around alone. There were training shoes laying casually next to a large houseplant by the door. He imagined her kicking them off one evening after getting home from the gym, hair in a ponytail, still wet from the shower. There was a magazine on the coffee table. Standard girl's stuff; clothes, purses, orgasms. _Orgasms_. He wondered if she would let him read that part. He never had her down as the type of woman who read women's magazines. He wondered what kind of magazines he would have expected her to read._ Guns, maybe? Fast cars?_ He found it sweet that his tomboy partner might secretly be really into purses. There was a pile of laundry folded on the couch. Some stuff just back from the dry cleaner's; a mocha brown sweater, cashmere maybe, hanging on the back of a door cloaked in plastic wrappers. Clothes he had never seen her wearing. He loved it; all of a sudden being allowed to see hidden aspects of Dani Reese. He had thought that he already knew her deeply but now he realized that there was still so much to discover. So much minutiae to absorb. All of it precious.

She noticed his eyes darting around as he came in, _detecting things_ like he did at work, and she suddenly felt vulnerable. She wondered what conclusions he was drawing about her. She cursed herself for inviting him over spontaneously, for denying herself the opportunity to straighten up before he could come in and just start _knowing stuff _about her. She would have blindfolded him if she could have. She scooped up her laundry quickly and carried it through to her bedroom.

They ate at her table and Charlie was impressed by Dani's mother's skills in the kitchen. She explained that when your mother cooked that well, you accepted early on that you could never surpass her skills, you quit trying and you took to chasing felons instead. She could never become a better cook than her mother but she was pretty sure that she was already a better cop than her father. Charlie agreed.

She caught him smiling fondly across the table at her and she wished he would quit it. Staring at her like he wanted to fuck her was one thing and while it caused her difficulties, she was getting used to it. This goofy, starry-eyed stuff was a different league of awkward however and made her feel very uncomfortable. _You knew this would happen, why did you bring him here? _She offered him more eggplant just to break it up.

They chatted about many things while they ate. Not about Jeannie Harris though. In fact they talked about anything but, silently conspiring to deliberately stay off that topic. It was still very much on their minds but if neither of them mentioned it, they could keep it at bay. If there was one thing they were good at, it was ignoring the elephant in the room.

He watched her eating. Those lips. In fact, just about every part of her fascinated him and although they were mainly discussing work, they weren't _at work_ and so he struggled to keep his mind out of the gutter.

"C'mon Crews. Dishes." Dani gestured towards the sink.

"You make your guests clean up?", he asked incredulously.

"Hell yeah." she replied, "And you don't really count as a guest."

"I don't? You invited me here, didn't you? Doesn't that make me a guest?"

"No. We eat together most days at some point. It's just that today you're in my apartment. So you're more of a...", she struggled to find the right term. "A constant.", she settled on.

"A constant?", he repeated, smiling. He liked how that sounded. Kind of permanent.

"_A constant pain in the ass_. Now. Washing or drying?", she demanded.

"You don't have a dishwasher?"

"Look at the size of my kitchen, Crews. Is there space?"

"Next time we'll eat at my place._ I_ won't make you do dishes.", he chanced. He would love to spend time with her in his home, to let her see his minutiae. He wondered what minutiae he had and made a mental note to acquire some.

She didn't respond, just threw him a dishcloth and switched on the faucet.

She washed, he dried and she directed him to where things should be put away. She ran a tight ship. He kind of liked her ordering him around. He wondered if she would be like that in bed, telling him where to put things, just how she like things done, leaving him no room for error. He shuddered at the very idea. He must have got lost in these thoughts for a couple of minutes; when he dragged himself back to reality, he noticed that she had stopped talking too. But she wasn't daydreaming about sex. She was now thinking about Jeannie, he divined. He could feel the atmosphere changing as the clouds brewed in her eyes.

Charlie reached past her to place a glass he had dried on the shelf behind her head as directed, expecting her to move to the left to let him by. She hadn't moved, he realized, as he set the glass down, and was instead peering up at him with such sorrow in her eyes that it stopped him dead in his tracks. They just looked at each other for a few seconds, Charlie thinking about how she was the only person in his life to even remotely understand him. He understood her too, most of the time, and he could see that she was struggling to contain her sadness tonight. Her eyes were harrowed and it was exactly how he felt, bounced back at him.

He dipped his head and went to kiss her cheek in a gesture of...well, he didn't know what. He hadn't thought about it, it just felt right. It was what you did when someone was upset, right? _It's what you do when your girlfriend is upset, Crews, and she's not yours to kiss, you asshole. Any second now she's gonna kick your ass. _In his defense it wasn't a sex thing, for a change. It was to make her feel better, a gesture of solidarity or something, and he hoped she would get that instead of drawing her firearm. He knew he wasn't supposed to show her affection. It was one of the rules. He closed his eyes even though this was a supposedly platonic kiss and it was over in a couple of seconds. _There_. Painless, like getting a shot at the doctor's office. He just had to be brave and hold his breath. He was relieved when she didn't yell and she didn't lash out. He was still holding the dishcloth. He realized that the awkward thing about it hadn't been the actual kiss like he would have expected, not her reaction like he feared; it was recovering from having kissed her. _Keep it together, Crews_. Oh man, the butterflies in his stomach.

This was all Dani's fault. She knew it. She had invited him here and already he was kissing her and she hadn't stopped him. She couldn't stop it and she hadn't wanted to. Tonight it was okay. She wasn't in the mood to explain it, or define it or to excuse it. It just _was_. And anyway, it had only been on the cheek. He had barely touched her, really. But it was still kind of a big deal. She wanted him close. Specifically Crews, not anyone else. Substitutes would no longer do. She didn't have the energy to pretend tonight. She just hoped he wasn't going to say anything and make her feel weak or foolish for letting him in a little. Sometimes she just needed him to shut the hell up and_ just_ _be_. He'd like that, she thought, he'd say it was Zen. Him kissing her briefly had felt perfect but she knew that the perfection could only last as long as he kept his mouth shut. She fought the primal urge to make like her dream with the snow cone and devour him.

Charlie, for his part, didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to say and for once he didn't speak just for the sake of it. He waited. He didn't move away too far just in case this was _it_, the moment when the shift in their relationship that happened months back was made physical. He really wanted to be around when _that_ happened. _Well, you'd kind of have to be, you idiot_. He figured that this was one occasion when he would really have to be there to _be there_. If she wanted to take this further she could still reach him; he knew it was her decision to take.

A couple of beats passed. This wasn't _it_. Dani didn't kiss him back. He exhaled, feeling deflated, and fiddled with the dishcloth.

She wondered if he actually _got it_, her need to just be quietly next to him because he was Crews and he was the only other person to have seen what she had seen today. That poor little girl, hurt so badly by the father she adored, the person who was her whole world. _A little close to home, Dani?_ Yeah, maybe. But Jack had never harmed her physically, however much she sometimes wished he had slapped her instead of just looking at her like she was dirt. She hated to let her hard-girl mask slip but she could hold it in no longer.

"She was just so tiny, Crews." She stared at the floor. Her voice was small and helpless, despite herself. She was conscious that she didn't sound like her.

He couldn't see her eyes. He said nothing in reply, just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her hard into his chest. He was surprised when she stayed put. It felt even more intimate than the kiss. He felt dizzy and relieved all at once.

She inhaled him through his shirt. She liked the strong, serious, silent Crews she saw on occasion. He was here tonight. The clown was gone for now.

Charlie was no longer in any doubt, although his insides were turning cartwheels, this wasn't a sex thing. He felt slightly crestfallen but bad for even having wondered. This was them comforting each other and in a way it was even better, he reasoned. _Definitely. Totally better._ Sex would just cause problems, maybe wreck everything, he told himself, mostly to counter his disappointment. But, my, she was holding him tight.

Dani barely ever let her guard down and since Nevikov she kept it all buried ever deeper. He only ever got glimpses when she was hurting, but he was emotionally nimble enough to pick up on the cues. Charlie knew that if she was feeling something bad enough to let it peek through to daylight even for a second, it must be absolutely eating her up under the surface. He saw how hard she found it to show any vulnerability. He managed to show her kindness without ever embarrassing her or making direct reference to her issues and he didn't realize how much she loved him for it. All he knew was that Dani letting him hug her was amazing, that she had held onto him right back was a major breakthrough. However, Charlie knew better than to expect that this was how things were going to be now, he knew that the second she let go of him she would go back to normal. Her spikes would grow back as soon as he turned her loose. So he clung on just a little longer so that he would remember it clearly, filing it away in his memorybank along with all the other little moments he cherished, stringing them together like glass beads on a necklace.

"You okay?" he asked when she shifted, asking to be released.

"Yeah, thanks.", she replied, slightly sheepish, avoiding that laser gaze of his.

He made it easy for her, turning away to the counter to fold the dishcloth neatly and place it there.

She felt flustered, having got a little more than just comfort out of his embrace. The smell of him made her crazy. She searched for something to do with her hands. She had resisted him once when he kissed her, then once again when he consoled her with the proximity of his body, if there was a third time she knew she couldn't be held responsible for her actions. _Are you surprised? What did you expect was going to happen tonight, Dani? _

"Coffee?", she asked breezily. With that single word she drew a firm line under the rare burst of honesty they had just shared.

He glanced at her, understanding immediately that he should now switch subjects and say something zany just so she could act exasperated with him and he could smile beatifically. _Then_ the air in her kitchen would thin and become breathable and _then_ order would be restored to the cosmos. Earth would resume its orbit around the sun and everything would once again behave the very same way it always had.

Except that Charlie's arms were still warm from Dani's body and as far as he was concerned a shower of comets now lit the night sky.


	21. Chapter 21

**_AN: Thanks as ever for reviews from Kimtastic, lipamo and Silversurf4 and great to hear from the mysterious Guest(s) and from bappled...everyone says it but it does persuade me to carry on. I won't keep you hanging. Too long. ;)_**

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><p>She watched him in the lamplight. They had cheered one another up a little.<p>

It was late. They didn't have work the following day but it was right around the time when it would have been polite for a dinner guest to go home. Charlie had said he was leaving twice already but still hadn't made any effort to rise from her couch. Dani felt that he was maybe building up to something. It didn't take a genius to figure out what. She had to accept that inviting him to her home had only encouraged him. She wondered what she would do when he finally got to it. She mentally flipped a coin. Heads and she would knock him back, in the interests of their careers and, if she was honest, her fear that it was just _too much_, and if the coin came up tails she would screw his brains out right there on the couch. _Really, Dani? That reckless? He's not just a guy on the opposite bar stool you know, you can't just scratch this itch and move on like nothing happened. Heads, Dani! Definitely heads! _She wavered as he babbled on about nothing in particular but concluded that heads was probably for the best. She looked him over head to toe. She noted the pretty curl of his fair lashes as he looked down at his hands and the quirk of his lips as a smile broke out at something sarcastic she had said. During the course of the evening he had loosened his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves and his hair was slightly flattened at the front from a long day on the case. _This isn't going to go away, Dani. _

For the want of something to say in order to distract herself from the two sides of fate's coin in her mind's eye, she asked what his plans for the weekend were. He began to tell her about his Saturday morning ritual of a long run followed by a long swim.

She paused to imagine Crews sweaty and panting from running. The coin flipped to tails. Then she conjured up a vision of Crews in his swim shorts. _Tails_. She wondered if his shoulders were also sprinkled with the tiny freckles she had noticed on his forearms.

_Tails_, _tails, tails. __Stop, Dani, stop._

After his swim he would make a big bowl of fruit salad for him and Ted. He started to get excited when he listed the ingredients. Had she tasted persimmon? His eyes grew wide and he began to speak faster. Apparently the chemical given off by bananas helped a persimmon to ripen and turn sweet, it was an experiment he was conducting right now on his kitchen counter. Nature was amazing, he giggled, his enthusiasm becoming too great for him to contain.

_Heads_. Dani shook her head almost imperceptibly_. Jesus, he's nuts. You can't go there Dani._

The very picture of contented domesticity, he and Ted would sit in the kitchen to eat fruit salad and he would wait until Ted was done reading the newspaper. They would then hang out together. This Saturday they would head out to the orange grove to check on things.

Dani baulked at the mention of that place. Charlie felt it from the other side of the couch and lifted his eyes to meet hers for a few charged seconds while they collectively recalled what went down at that location, how everything had changed there and then and how they were still dealing with the fallout nearly a year later. Time slowed down between them once again. Right then would have been the moment to kiss her. She saw his eyes flicker like gas flame but he didn't move a muscle. The memory of the orange grove hurt like an open wound but it wasn't true to say that it all started there, at least for her, she reflected. For her it began when she was posted at the FBI, when she realized that she hated being apart from him, when she was consumed by jealousy at the thought of Crews riding with Seever, beset by insecurity that she might take her place in Crews' life. That was when she began to realize that something was up.

_Heads_. Because she was afraid of the depth of feeling she had been surpressing for so long, afraid both of the enormity of it and of what might happen if she ran with it.

"Wanna come?", he asked softly.

"Come where?", she replied. She knew where.

"The orange grove." His face was serious.

She couldn't go there with him. Either physically or conversationally. She chose to deflect his question.

"No thanks, I'm fine for fruit. I have grapes in the refrigerator."

"You shouldn't store them in the refrigerator. Grapes need to breathe.", he retorted, matter-of-fact.

_Heads. Pain in the ass. _She narrowed her eyes at him. "So far your weekend is mainly fruit-based."

"I guess it is. So what?", he shrugged, slightly irritated that she had refused to discuss the orange grove with him.

"I wonder about you sometimes is all.", she said.

"You wonder about me? What do you wonder, Reese?"

She didn't know how he did it but his voice and his facial expression were both suggestive and innocent all at once.

_If he only knew. __Tails_.

"I wonder if you've always been this way."

"What way?"

"A little crazy..."

"You mean _charmingly eccentric?_" He arched his eyebrow.

"However you want to dress it up, Crews. You know what I mean. The fruit, the Zen. The total disregard for the law despite the fact that you're a cop. I just wonder if you were always this way. Or whether what you went through turned you..."

"...crazy?", he finished for her.

"...charmingly eccentric.", she corrected.

He smiled that smile at her.

_Tails_.

She shook her head, exasperated as much with herself than with him. "You can't have started out this way. If you had, you would have got your ass kicked every day in jail."

"Well, prison is the place for lost souls and misfits, so I didn't stand out for that reason. When I went into that place I was a twenty-four-year-old skinny white boy. And if that wasn't bad enough, I was a fucking cop, Reese. I _did_ get my ass kicked every day. And every other part of me. Until it stopped."

He said it lightly but she could tell it was true. She felt bad. A hint of anguish passed over his face, just for a second.

"So the ass-kicking stopped? Eventually? How did you make that happen?", she asked, showing real concern to make up for being so flippant.

"I kicked back one day. _Harder_."

He looked her in the eye in that determined way of his and she detected him reliving something brutal for a second. The stuff he would be ashamed to tell his grandma. She wanted to know what it was, to know all of him, but she could tell that he wasn't about to share it. She couldn't help but get a little turned on at the thought of this man's brutal side. She chased criminals for a living and the men she encountered in that context did not have this effect on her; with Crews it was the idea that someone she knew to be so good could also be so bad, that he was capable of it but mostly contained it. It simmered away under the surface and he gave her chills. It made her want to coax it out of him, just so she could see it was there.

_Tails_.

"Violence against others is violence against yourself, right? That's what you said to me?." She pretended like she hadn't read up on all the stuff he spouted at her in the car. "I thought you were Zen?"

"I'm Zen-ish. _That's_ what I said to you.", he corrected.

"Huh. You don't have to pretend to be enlightened with me you know. I know you way better than that." Her turn to raise an eyebrow.

He just smiled fondly at her.

"You won't go with me to pick some oranges tomorrow?", he persisted, chasing her eyes when she looked away.

"I'll pass.", she replied.

And just like that he dropped it. He had aborted any plan he might have had to bring the situation to a head, she could feel it. The rising waters had just suddenly fallen away. Maybe it was all the talk of jail. As much as she had a policy of her word being rule, Dani realized that she felt disappointed that he wasn't going to try harder to persuade her. She was beginning to enjoy the sport of it. The fact that he had changed his mind made her want it all the more. Everything about tonight, just having him here, touching him, their circular conversations, felt risky, and it was kind of a thrill. Now that she didn't drink or do drugs she didn't get too many of them any longer. She didn't want to talk about the orange grove and all that stuff but she sure wanted to express it physically. She wanted to feel his hands on her again. She wanted to feel his skin against hers. She wanted him to try harder, damn it.

Yeah, she recognized she was a mess of contradictions but that was her perogative, right? Dani wanted whatever she wanted and that could change at any given second, as her internal coin flipped endlessly between sense and complete abandon. In the past the same impulse had seen her snap and unscrew the cap from a bottle of vodka she had resisted for hours on end by reciting all the reasons why she could never drink again, only to swallow the contents in just three pulls when someone had threatened to pour it into the sink to end the temptation.

This time he did get up to take his jacket from the back of the chair at the kitchen table and she felt slightly affronted that he was suddenly prepared to call it a day.

She followed him to the door like any good host would.

But that was as far as he was going to get, she had decided.


	22. Chapter 22

_**A/N: okay, I need to apologize for the delay in updating, I had to abandon writing for a while due to life going crazy, changing jobs and apartments and...all that. I promise to continue, it just won't come thick and fast. I hope you guys are still with me !**_

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><p><em>Holy shit.<em>

_Holy shit, Dani. What have you done?!_

Her eyes flicked open to the peach-grays and pink-browns of morning. Her nightstand as usual. The deep-piled rug as usual. Clothes strewn on the floor as usual. Then, the splitest of seconds later, it all came back to her. Her room might have looked the same as ever but there was something very different about it this morning.

She snapped her eyes shut again and lay very, very still. She was very aware of her nakedness.

_Oh fuck. Ohhhhh. Fuck._

She flexed her toes and kept them outstretched, braced, while the memory of his skin between her teeth, the lock of limbs and the huff of their synchronized breaths rushed back at her.

_Jesus Christ._

She needed a plan. If she didn't move a muscle, didn't breathe, he wouldn't wake up and she would have time to think. Maybe he was already awake? If she could just feign sleep for a little while longer, hold off the inevitable post mortem, she would have time to examine just how she felt about all of this before he started with his craziness.

_So? You got what you wanted, didn't you? Now what?_

She opened one eye the tiniest crack to squint over at the red digital numbers on her decades-old radio alarm clock. For some reason, it mattered to her what the time was. 6.38am. They had slept through the night. Together. There had been no discussion, no 'how was it for you?' and certainly no sweet nothings. She hadn't had to deal with a post-coital Crews. _Yet_. She must have fallen asleep pretty much straight after. Exhausted, she guessed. She smirked, then stopped herself, she was supposed to be asleep after all.

It hadn't been at all like she had thought in all of her imaginings. She needn't have worried that Crews was too much of a _nice boy_ for her. Turns out he wasn't a nice boy at all. She hadn't had sex like that in quite some time. She had to admit, it was pretty incredible. They had done things...stuff that would normally be confined to one of her nastier drunken one night stands where she would be practically anonymous and could just walk away after. It was kind of new for Dani to have been that intimate with someone without having to be hopped up on whichever substance she could lay her hands on. How the fuck was she going to reconcile that with the fact that she would have to see _this_ guy day in, day out for the foreseeable future, no matter how they decided to proceed?

She felt the panic rise in her chest.

_Get a grip, Dani._

She told herself that it was going to be okay. This was Crews, there was nothing to be afraid of. Or was there? Last night he had been kind of...different. Not aggressive...but almost. His lust had hard edges. He certainly didn't hurt her but once he quit jabbering and it got serious he had surprised her, the same way he surprised her whenever the Zen mask slipped. That darkness, that intensity in him, it was there in the bedroom. She found it incredibly hot. In fact, she mused, they had kind of clashed, each wanting to take charge. She wouldn't let him drive their car at work but when it came to sex, he had made it clear that he had no intention of being the passenger. It was weird but she had kind of enjoyed letting him.

It unsettled her to realize that she didn't regret it. She might even like to do it again. She wondered how she should handle it. He was going to want to talk feelings and stuff, she knew it. He had tried to last night, before they even got started, but she had shut him up with more urgent matters.

She hadn't yet dared look over at him, their bodies weren't touching but she could smell his cologne. Was he laying there going over all of this in his mind too? Was he as scared as she was?

Dani reminded herself that she was an adult. She could do this. She had started it, after all, all because the scales had tipped and the terrible burden of not doing it had suddenly become far worse than her fear of taking the plunge. It was good to be nervous, it showed that it meant something.

She shot another look at the clock. 6.48am. She couldn't just lay there.

_Okay. On three. _She would turn around and face the music.

_One. Two. Shit. Here goes. Fucking three._

Dani rolled over as if she was just rousing. She expected to be greeted by his thousand-watt grin, she imagined he would be pretty darn pleased with himself this morning. She hoped he would still be sleeping, that way she could watch him in peace.

Just rumpled sheets.

She frowned, reached out to pat the pillow. Cold.

Her heart was sinking but she ignored it, both the sensation and the recognition of just how disappointed she actually was. She found herself hoping to find him singing in her shower, or helping himself to the sparse contents of her fridge. She scooted across her room to grab her robe from the back of the door.

Nothing. Her apartment was empty, there was no sign of her partner save for the trail of her clothes they had left along the path from the couch to her bed last night.

"Mother fucking Crews!", she growled.

She was beyond mad, she was hurt. And that made her positively dangerous.


	23. Chapter 23

Charlie slammed his car door a little harder than he needed to. He had driven around for an hour or so lacking inspiration on a place to go, something to do to distract him, failed, and then inevitably wound up at home. He couldn't even do 'wandering aimlessly' right. _Loser_. He had really fucked up big this time.

His heavy feet took him to the kitchen, his fridge always the first port of call when he got home. He took long glugs of juice straight from the carton, Adam's apple chugging as he drank, trickles running from each corner of his mouth, off his chin, down his throat and onto his shirt. He didn't care, he was pretty sure the shirt was wrecked anyway; she had torn it in her haste to get it off him last night. He shivered involuntarily as he wiped up with his cuff.

"Jeeeeeez!", wheezed Ted with his heart in his mouth. "You scared me, Charlie, I didn't think you were home."

Ted stood before him bare-chested, in the loudest pair of bermuda shorts that Charlie had ever seen. Charlie raised an eyebrow.

"I wasn't, I just got back."

It wasn't the usual sunny greeting that Ted got from his roommate. He frowned with those big, frowny brows of his. Charlie looked kind of dishevelled and moody. Ted wondered if he was in trouble.

"Everything okay, Charlie?", he asked trying to mask his suspicion, preparing himself for bad news. He kind of hoped there wasn't going to be a drama, he didn't have time right now for drama.

"Everything's fine, Ted. What's with the shorts?"

Ted looked down sharply, suddenly remembering what he was wearing. The shorts were ludicrous, he knew it, they hadn't been his idea. He opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by Olivia coming in from the pool. She wore a 50s-style one-peice bathing suit with an open linen shirt over the top, huge movie star sunglasses and a floppy sunhat.

"Oh, hi Charlie. Sorry, I didn't know you were home." She said apologetically. She sensed an atmosphere, so she ducked back outside after smiling sweetly at Ted and exchanging pleasantries with her ex-fiancé's son, whom she noted could sometimes be as brooding as his father.

"You two made up, huh?" Charlie was genuinely pleased for his friend. "That's great, Ted."

"Oh, um, yeah. Peace has resumed." Ted half-smiled and threw a bashful glance at the floor. "I thought that, since you weren't home, we could use the pool but we'll bring it back inside..."

"Hey, don't break up the party on my account. This is your house too." Charlie shook his head emphatically.

"Well, you could join us?", offered Ted, pretty sure that Olivia would kill him if she heard him say that.

Charlie looked fondly at him. "No thanks. Three's a crowd and I wouldn't want to get in the way..." He smiled at Ted. "Besides, I don't have any shorts to rival _those_. And also, Ted, I'm thinking about going on vacation."

"Vacation? Right now? Really? Where to?" Ted looked surprised. This was sudden. Charlie didn't look right. He smelled trouble.

"Oh, I don't know...someplace warm?", Charlie wondered aloud.

"Warm like here, or _warm-warm_?"

"Warm like here. You know I don't tan."

Ted decided to humor him. "Well, I don't know, Charlie. Have you thought about Europe? Spain maybe? What brought this on, anyway? Don't you have work...? What's Reese going to say?"

Fearing his questions, or that Ted was about to launch into one of his interminable tales of Spain, Charlie cocked his head and pretended he had heard Olivia calling. Ted made a 'whaddaya-gonna-do?' face, dutifully scurried off and left Charlie in peace, which was all he really wanted right now.

He trudged upstairs to his room and got changed, tossing a few clothes into a brown leather bag as he did so. Where _would_ he go? There was no place obvious. He sat on the end of the bed to think. He could always visit Rachel, but then he wasn't sure she would appreciate him showing up at her dorm out of the blue. He would normally seek out either Ted or Reese when he needed someone, not necessarily ever telling them why he was suddenly in their face, but healing himself merely by being in the presence of someone he trusted. He peeked out of one of his panoramic bedroom windows down towards the pool. Ted and Olivia were in the shallows, dancing what appeared to be a cheek-to-cheek waltz in their bathing suits to some tinny music coming from the iPod that Rachel had bought Charlie at Christmas but had never once seen him use. He smiled faintly._ At least someone seems to be getting it right._ Ted was clearly busy, Charlie couldn't trouble him. So that left Reese, who was the whole reason he wanted to get away in the first place.

He sighed and drew his hand down his face, bristle on his chin scratching his palm as he tried to wipe away this sorry mess.

_You can lead a horse to water but you can't_ _make him drink_, his mother used to say. She had been full of oldy-worldy aphorisms like that - much like him with his Zen koans. His mother was generally right, as mothers normally are, but Charlie had spent months praying that on this one thing she had been wrong. Over the past months he had been trying to coax Reese into a position where she felt comfortable, able to open up to him and entertain the notion that this was it, that one plus one really did equal one. He felt like they had made progress but lately for every step forward they took, they immediately staggered four steps back. His mother had been right. Dani Reese could not be persuaded or tamed; she would only get spooked if he pulled too hard. So contrary was she that it was just typical that as soon as he stopped trying, she advanced all of her own accord, suddenly and decisively and at four-hundred miles per hour.

He had thought that if she agreed to go with him to the orange grove it would be a sign that she was ready to face up to things. He had this dumb romantic plan to take her hand in the place where this all started and tell her how he felt. She would be half expecting it if he did it there. But she had declined out of hand. She wasn't ready. With his mother's wisdom ringing in his ears, he resolved that it didn't matter, he would wait. And he would find a small way to try again the next day. And the next day. And the next and the next.

After the orange grove non-conversation, he had given up. So he was taken aback when he was on his way out of her apartment and she grabbed him and kissed him like her life depended on it. He had been totally surprised, but good-surprised and left completely off balance on the other side of her door. She was on tiptoes, clasping the side of his face with one hand and pulling down on the lapel of his jacket with the other, her eyes squeezed shut. He couldn't believe it was happening. Dani Reese was attached to his face and there was no time even to thank the universe, all he could do was just kind of sigh his massive relief into her mouth. It wasn't exactly the perfectly choreographed first kiss he had been fantasizing about for months. An orchestra didn't start up. It had been too long in coming and the release was just too great for him to mobilize his lips in time to kiss her back. His brain had frozen for a second and he just had to focus on not hyperventilating, on not swallowing his own tongue. _This might actually be it_. While he had been in the process of leaving, this was not a kiss goodnight. It was much more. _Her lips. Jesus, her lips._ Scarlet lust had flooded his body immediately and all he could do was exhale. _Just breathe, Charlie, this is it._

Then she quietly uttered the single-most sexy word a woman had ever said to him.

"Stay?"

She looked so uncharacteristically vulnerable and unsure of herself in that moment but he had never seen her appear so beautiful. A knot blossomed in his gut.

She wanted him to stay. It was half a question, half an invitation, and although he could barely move his legs, he willingly followed when she slowly led him by the hand back into her apartment, pushing the door closed behind him and in so doing coming close enough for him to gather her up and kiss her for real, just as eagerly as she had kissed him a minute before. To the goddamned moon and back. This time he had full control of his faculties. They tumbled hard against the door but he didn't even feel the bump, lost as he was in the sensation of her lips and her hair and her arms and..._oh_, _man_. Sparks. _This_ was what he had dreamed of all this time.

When they were done, they stared constellations at each other for a few seconds, stunned. They breathed each other's breath, their arms wound tight about the other's torso. Neither of them could have let go even if the other had asked. _Wow_. _The universe did good. _But then he saw her swallow hard and something strange passed over her face. Her eyes had changed somehow, and he felt a loss when she broke their gaze and moved forward to claim him again. It was confusing, like she was simultaneously pushing him away while pulling him closer.

But who was he to argue? Dani Reese kissing him was far preferable to Dani Reese _not_ kissing him. And so he let her carry on, long and luscious and getting a little heated, almost enough to chase away his slight unease. _Almost_. She started pulling at his jacket, working her hands underneath and trying to peel it off his shoulders.

"Um," he gasped between waves of her lips, "What is this?"

She didn't answer at first, absorbed as she was in her quest to shuck him of his jacket and tie.

"What?", she managed eventually, a little impatiently, as his mouth moved to her neck.

"One. Are we..._one_? Is this..._it_?"


	24. Chapter 24

Dani looked at him askance. _Here we go_, she thought.

"_One_ what?", she should have just ignored him but she couldn't help herself.

"One plus one equals one. Is that what this is?" Charlie was looking at her earnestly.

"No, _that's_ just bad math. _This_ is..." She chose to dismiss it, whatever it was, by drawing him back into a kiss.

It worked too, for a few seconds. She began to loosen his tie, sucking on his top lip, but frowning thunder when he continued to wriggle and it became clear that her efforts alone weren't enough to make him lose his train of thought. She was kind of offended, actually.

She sighed, exasperated. "What, Crews? Is there a problem?"

"What are we doing here?", he mumbled against her cheek, the bass in his voice making her wisdom teeth tickle.

She kissed him again, with all the sex kitten she could muster.

"I know you were locked up for a long time, but do I really need to draw you a picture?", she raised one eyebrow.

"Are we...?" He was short of breath.

"Making out. I believe they call it 'making out'."

"Is this...what we do now?"

"Jesus, Crews. _Really_?" With anyone else, she would have given up at this point, she wasn't one to beg. She didn't need to beg, damn it. But she had felt things when she kissed him. Special things. Uncharted waters. Tumultuous, scary, but kind of thrilling.

"Why now?" He tousled a silk of her hair in his fingers. He just wanted to know she felt the same, to hear her say the words.

"_Why now, _what?" Why did he insist on some big talk at a time like this? Why had she picked such an atypical guy to get fixated with? If he could get it on with some slut in Bobby Stark's garage, why couldn't he do this, right here, right now, with her?

"Why are we doing today what we weren't doing yesterday?"

"Well, it is your birthday...so...", she evaded, made light of the situation. Evasion had become her thing.

"I usually just get cake on my birthday"

That was it, she couldn't contain her irritation any longer. She pushed away from him sharply but he didn't let her loose entirely, his fingers brushed her jeans just below her hip. Pissed though she was, she was acutely aware that he was touching her still, the game was still on.

"Well, I'm all out of birthday cake, Crews.", she spat. "But if you'd rather, we could check the refrigerator? Maybe drive to the store for baking supplies?" Her tone was sarcastic, already shutting down in case this was a big, fat, horrible rejection.

He knew he was losing her. _This is it and now you're screwing it up! _Although he objected plenty to the way this conversation had gone, this moment had been too long in coming just to throw it away.

"No, no, no, no, no." He then pulled her hard back to him. She fairly bounced off his chest but he held her fast. "What you got here is just fine." He gazed at her intently, finally able to openly stare at her mouth, his physical urges forcing his emotional misgivings to the back of his brain, trying to regain some lost ground. "So..."

"So. You don't need to understand _here_ to be _here_.", she couldn't help the '_fuck you_' grin from spreading across her face.

"Cute.", Charlie conceded.

"No. Not cute. Zen.", she corrected.

"My watch says there are only three minutes of my birthday left."

"Oh, it had better take a whole lot longer than that, Crews."


	25. Chapter 25

**_AN: Hi guys. A million apologies for the delay. I didn't want to be one of those crappy fic writers who leaves you high and dry in the middle of a story. But I am. Anyhow, I'm back and I have the next couple of chapters ready to go before posting this, and I aim to update roughly weekly, so it shouldn't happen again. I hope you still care!_**

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><p>Charlie lumbered down his sweeping staircase, packed bag in hand.<p>

"You _are_ going on vacation.", Ted observed from the bottom step. Still wearing those shorts. "Have you decided where to?"

"Not yet.", Charlie noted the concern in Ted's eyes. "But I'll call you when I get where I'm going."

"So you don't know where you are going. Do you know _why_ you are going?"

Charlie reminded himself that beneath the unassuming, cartoon-like Droopy exterior, his roommate was a pretty astute guy.

He sighed. "Ted, did you ever get exactly what you wanted and then kind of wish that you hadn't?"

"No, not really, Charlie." Ted could not know the context of Charlie's question was women but his mind had immediately flown to Olivia, for whom he had pined for months. Now that they were finally together, he was blissfully, blissfully happy. No regrets. Life was certainly exceeding his expectations right now, he wouldn't have been able to relate to Charlie's predicament even if he had known what it was. "So this thing that you got...it wasn't what you expected?"

Charlie shook his head frenetically. "Oh, it was _everything_ I expected. More, even."

Ted was kind of baffled. It was nothing new, his roommate often did this to him. "So...the problem is..?"

"It just wasn't _how_ I wanted it to be." Charlie saw Ted frown in confusion. "_I_ wasn't how I should have been. I'm not the man I want to be. And I have to ask myself if I ever have been."

"And now you need to go on vacation", Ted suggested whilst nodding, as if one thing naturally followed the other. If he played along long enough, he thought it might all suddenly become clear.

"Exactly.", Charlie agreed, so glad that Ted understood. He made towards the door. "Oh and Ted? If Reese calls, you don't know where I am, right?"

"Uh...okaaay.", Ted drawled slowly. "Shouldn't be so hard since I truly don't know where you're going.".

Charlie had upset Reese. That would be reason to run alright, Ted thought. So that was what all this was about. Another foul up at work? Bad enough that he needed to hide from his partner, the one person who usually had his back? He winced. _Jeez, not again, Charlie_. Not for the first time he wondered how sustainable an LAPD career was for this guy. Wait. No. Something was different here. He mentally rewound their conversation, Charlie appearing in the morning looking like he had slept in a bush. Seemingly full of remorse. Complaining of not being man enough, or something. _Oh_, _shiiiiit_. Could it be that...? Did they finally...? Ted knew how his roommate felt about his partner. This was huge. They had finally got it on! He just knew it. But Charlie wasn't walking on air like he had been when Olivia finally said yes. Maybe it hadn't gone well. Oh, man. There was only one explanation. This was _guy stuff_, he thought. Maybe Charlie couldn't get it up, or maybe everything was over all too soon. Reese always struck him as a formidable woman. _Poor guy._ He immediately wanted to tell Olivia.

"Good.", Charlie said solemnly.

"Uh, you know, Charlie...sometimes things happen to a guy...or don't happen. You know? Doesn't mean it's always gonna be that way. There are lots of reasons for it. Sometimes...it's just not the_ right time_." Ted tried to look as sage and as sympathetic as he could. They had shared plenty of heart to hearts over the years but this was kind of _delicate_.

Charlie looked despondent. Ted felt like he wasn't helping any.

"Uhhh. Does Zen cover this stuff?", he tried.


	26. Chapter 26

Dani ripped the sheets from the bed with a violence to rival that displayed by one of her more heinous perps.

She had given him the benefit of the doubt, waited there naked for him to return with breakfast or coffee or something dumb like that, and then, as that hope faded, she convinced herself to sit tight because he was about to call with some explanation that would make it all okay. Nothing. He had just plain shot through. The fact that she had clung to the hope that there would be some plausible reason for leaving made her hate herself all the more. Now she wanted every trace of him, of them together, gone.

Well, shit. She wouldn't have expected this from him in a million years. They had something going, didn't they? At least she thought they did.

She felt used. It wasn't like she hadn't done exactly the same thing to plenty of guys in the past, crept from a room half-dressed in the half-light. That kind of made it worse because she could recall what she had felt on all those occasions. Often it was revolt and regret, married to the sense that if she could only get out of there fast enough, if she could make it home and slip into her own bed before sun up, she could pretend like she went home alone the night before all along. Was that how he felt? Was it that bad? Her indiscretions had mostly been with strangers whose faces she could barely remember, the tang of tequila or bourbon or vodka in their sweat often her sole abiding memory. Crews was different though. They were partners. Damn it, she deserved a little more than _this_. Was she just supposed to turn up at work on Monday and be all cool and have a 'let's pretend this never happened' conversation with him? No way. Not this time, not with this guy.

She glanced at her cell for the twenty-sixth time and then shook her head. No. _She_ was not going to call _him_.

She stomped out to her kitchen. She could see the lamp, smashed and in pieces on the floor next to the couch. Her mother had given her that lamp, damn it. Crews had knocked it from the table with one of his stupid long legs.

She just didn't get it. The moment he kissed her she remembered thinking that she had made the right decision. She felt things, amazing, gigantic, scary things and it had terrified and exhilarated her all at once. She felt the urge to say stuff to him that she had never said to anyone before but she swallowed it back and told herself to concentrate on what it was she knew how to do; reel him in and give him a night he would never forget. He was the chatty one in their partnership; she wouldn't have been able to find the right words and, in any case, once it was out there she wouldn't be able to take it back, he would _know_ and that scared the shit out of her. No, better to let her body do the talking. He would get the message.

And he got the message alright, once he finally stopped talking. She had stemmed his nervous chatter with a "Let's just concentrate on tonight.", drawing him over to the sofa once she finally managed to free him from his jacket. She wasn't about to let him go anywhere. After that it was pretty crazy. A frenzy, a blur of buttons, fastenings, zippers, knots, hooks and clasps. Their impatient fingers couldn't move fast enough, couldn't finish the job of removing her shirt, or his tie, before hurrying back to the other's face, to the next item of clothing to be loosened, short of torn away. Too much material hiding the flesh underneath. Too much flesh to touch, to kiss. And she found that she couldn't stop kissing him. His lips, his mouth, were somehow delicious. To her own amusement she decided, and she was in no way going to share this with him because she would have never heard the end of it, that his kisses were like some kind of gorgeous fruit that she had never tasted before and just couldn't get enough of. Overripe cherries, luscious peach, juicy watermelon. _The fucking irony._

She wondered if he had ever actually undressed a woman before, her bra unfastened and his hand glorious beneath the lace despite the fact she was still wearing her tank and half her shirt. But then she wasn't making much better progress than him. The contrast between the size of her couch and the size of him was making things difficult. She tugged on one sleeve of his shirt, which had gotten caught up on his watch while his arm was underneath her. The need to feel his skin was getting so great that she wound up getting mad, yanking the cotton sharply and hearing the stitching give way abruptly. She estimated that he had spent more on that shirt than she had spent on groceries and takeout in the past two months. He didn't appear to care in the slightest. He sat up slightly, hesitating over the top button of her jeans, as if this was the one step that, if taken, if she let him touch her there, would mean that _this was really happening_. There was no longer a doubt in her mind, but then her mind wasn't in control any longer. He looked at her, all earnest blue, and started to ask her if she was sure. She cut him off. "Just hurry, Crews.", she managed to wheeze, guiding his hand back down to the row of buttons, hoping he would make a better job of them than the rest of her clothing, dragging his face back onto hers. As if to convince him that this was what she really wanted, she grabbed at his belt, unbuckled it roughly with one hand and felt for his fly, running her palm over the proof that _he_ really wanted this too. _This is really happening_. He extended his legs, straining against her touch as she worked her hand inside his pants, kicking her mother's lamp to the ground in the process. He didn't apologize. They were plunged into near darkness, the spotlights in the kitchen backlit her hair cascading in waves through his hand when he tried to fix her still, to look into her eyes despite the shadows and to say something poignant. She couldn't bear to listen in case she was moved to respond in kind and so she lunged forward again to smother his words with her mouth. Even so, he managed to growl past her furious kisses.

"Dani. Bedroom. _Now_."

He didn't usually get to order her around. Usually she would take exception to his tone. But in this context she had decided she kind of liked it. Intimate, sexy and just the right mix of bossiness and urgency in his voice. She led him to her room, negotiating her furniture through the dark and the sharp pieces of broken lamp underfoot, returning to his lips every few paces, catching him off balance as he kicked off his shoes, finally tossing his goddamned shirt to the floor. Thankfully, it was a small apartment because she could not wait, couldn't bear to keep her hands off him. She was sober, her eyes were open, she was taking a guy to bed and she had almost forgotten that he was her partner. Sex and alcohol went hand in hand for Dani, ditto sex and shame, it had been so novel just to feel plain excited for a change. She was ready and she trusted him after all, there was no need to worry that this wasn't going to work out.

She shook her head ruefully as she crouched down to gather the shards of the ceramic lamp base. She had grown up with this thing. It was probably older than she was, it had always been there, she could picture certain family photos from the eighties that it starred in. She imagined her mom buying it when she set up home as a newlywed. It was ugly but Dani loved it, her mother had insisted she take it when she left home.

Jesus, her mom. If she could see what a car crash her daughter was. Dani could feel the shame creeping back.

She checked her phone for the twenty-seventh time.


	27. Chapter 27

Charlie tossed his bag onto the vast hotel bed and pulled out his cell phone.

He should call her, he knew he should. But what would he say? She probably thought he was an animal. And she'd be right. The second her apartment door had swung shut on him that morning he had regretted running away, then panicked, but found that his panic drew him towards his car rather than sending him back to hammer on her door.

He just hadn't wanted to hear her say it. Because he knew that she _would_ say it, some time after her waking up and him putting a brave face on it, mentioning breakfast, pretending like he didn't already know.

He had known it even before they really got started the night before. But he had been too weak to do the sensible thing and stop it all. It was a one-time-thing. He got that. It had been a hard day on the Jeannie Harris case. They had both been through it, although they had never met the tiny girl it felt a lot like grief, maybe what happened had just been a little...mutual consolation? He had heard them say that it happens with mixed partnerships, that guys and girls can't work so closely together without sexual tension, that you always at least wonder, and that sometimes it's just best to get it over with so you can move on. He always thought that was bullshit invented by guys who had no respect for their female colleagues. But maybe Dani bought into that theory? He felt like she did. He knew of at least two guys at the station excluding Tidwell that claimed they had once had a thing with her. These stories went uncorroborated however, since Charlie would never dare ask Dani herself. Maybe Charlie was just another one of those guys as far as Dani was concerned, maybe hoping that there was anything deeper going on was just wishful thinking on his part? Maybe she had gotten sick of him trailing after her with his tongue scraping the ground? He didn't like her attitude but right at the moment she kissed him it was the difference between explaining that a one-off wouldn't be enough for him and having to go home alone, and her kissing him again. He chose the latter because he was a guy. He hadn't thought he was _that_ kind of guy but evidently he was. Sex first, consequences later. He had put his heart on the line in the interests of another part of his anatomy. Now he was hurting and it was all he deserved.

He perched on the end of the bed, just as he had at home, and thought. He had a great view of the ocean, sunlight and ozone breeze flooding the room. All this clarity should help him achieve some...clarity, he hoped.

He stared into the full-length mirror. Was he a perfectionist? Was that the problem? He got what he wanted, didn't he? Why complain? _Because when a thing's not right, it's just not right. That's why._ He had been the same with Jennifer. Pursuing her for months after his release, hounding her new husband. Didn't matter that she had divorced him long ago, moved on. He had been exonerated, the whole reason why she left him had been wiped away. It wasn't actually as simple as that, as his battered body and psyche would attest, but Charlie believed that he deserved reparation; just like his freedom his life should have been returned to him in the same state as he left it twelve years before. That included his marriage. He hadn't killed the Seybolts, the charges against him had been erased, her reason for leaving him had disappeared. He had been the man Jennifer married all along. That meant that they still belonged to one another because there was no reason why they shouldn't. That made her new marriage null and void. That's how he justified harassing Mark. When she finally gave in and they hooked up at their old motel, he expected it to be as great as it always had been. But it wasn't. The sex was as good as ever, maybe even better for all the anticipation, but when a thing's not right, it's just not right. They both knew it. As they held each other in the worn-out motel bed they both felt strangely hollow. Jen had left him when he needed her most, there was no erasing that. He knew then that they would never truly be together again. That had been a one-time-thing too.

He rotated his cell in his palm. Should he call Dani and explain all this to her? Would she understand? Would she listen to him? There was a distinct possibility that she may not even pick up. Even if it was a one-time-thing, she would be mad as hell that he had just upped and left. That was kind of rude of him.

She had slept with him but she hadn't really _been there_ with him. Not how he really wanted, anyway. She didn't mean it. She barely looked him in the eye the whole time. She called him 'Crews' throughout. Like they were on a call together at work. All that stuff about it being his birthday? A time-limited offer. He should have said no but his Zen had deserted him the second she touched him.

He would take some time, think, meditate and regroup. He was having a hard time controlling his anger, his passions lately. For most of his twelve-year sentence those were the instincts had ruled him and allowed him to survive. He had thought he had put all that away when he got out. But every now and again, that version of himself reemerged and fought against his attempts to surpress it. She brought it out in him. Making out with her had been like petting a kitten who hadn't learned how to play nice yet. She was all teeth and claws, there was something untamed about her. As much as he wanted to hold her still and show her how much he cared, he found that he liked her fight and that it spoke to that part of him he tried to deny. She unleashed something in him that he was a little embarrassed about in the cold light of day. He had been convinced that he was no longer that guy. It appeared that sometimes he was. He recalled the perp in the alley that he nearly beat to death for attacking Dani, he remembered trying to throttle that little shit Pearlman at his skeevy titty bar for running off at the mouth to her - that was the same Crews that had thrown Dani around her bed the night before, a man possessed. If it had been his first time with a woman after his release it might have been understandable but he couldn't use that as an excuse, just as he couldn't excuse the violence, he was now some three years on from that. He couldn't go on behaving like a con every time he got het up.

He didn't know how he was going to express all this to Dani. But he was going to have to give her some kind of explanation, he couldn't remain_ on vacation_ forever; leaving his job because of this was not an option. It was all he knew and she was all he _wanted_ to know. He decided that the best course of action was to defer any action. He was hungry and tired and he needed to shower. He called room service. He got the impression they would fly to the moon to please him. He figured that this was because he'd taken their fanciest suite. He ordered fruit. When asked what kind, he replied that they should just send up whatever they had that seemed good, a selection maybe. That important task over, he loitered a little to gaze at the spectacular view from his huge window before wandering through to his bathroom, delighted with the dark stone surfaces and the palm leaves and hibiscus-or-whatever arrangement and the huge walk-in shower. He should vacation more often, he decided.

Charlie wondered who would miss him if he did vacation permanently; he could certainly afford to. Ted had Olivia now. Rachel had her own life to lead. He worried that might have irretrievably fucked up with the only other person who really mattered.


	28. Chapter 28

Ted set down his car keys and frowned as he shuffled the pamphlets, letting them fall into a different order on the kitchen counter. He adjusted one of them so that it slanted. Yeah, now they looked like they had just been tossed there casually. Coincidentally right where Charlie usually stood to drink his juice in the morning. He cocked his head, took a step back, frowned some more and then repeated the whole process.

"Diabetes, Prostate Cancer, Heart Disease, Erectile Dysfunction, Alzheimer's..." Olivia read out the titles over his shoulder. "Jesus, Ted, what is this? A little light reading for bedtime? Way to give yourself nightmares."

"They're not for me, dummy.", he waved the Erectile Dysfunction pamphlet at her. "For Charlie? I got them at the doctor's office."

"Boy, you really cleaned them out...", she said, surveying the range of titles some more.

"Well, I figured I'd get a whole bunch, say that I had a checkup, that they gave me all of these to bring home and just leave them laying around so that he can...find the one he needs.", Ted explained his ingenious plan.

"I see. So you won't have to have that guy-talk you were telling me about?", she nodded like she was just catching on.

"_Exactly_. This way he has the information he needs and he doesn't have to feel...uncomfortable."

"And you don't have to feel...uncomfortable either?"

"_Exactly_."

"Honey? You're a very sensitive man and I love you." She clapped her hands over Ted's cheeks and kissed his lips. Olivia knew that this ploy was as much to save Ted's embarrassment as it was Charlie's.

Ted basked in her kiss but managed to look bashful even though he and Olivia were well past that stage. He put the pamphlet back in the pile, placing it second from the top but pulling it out of line slightly, so that the title was clearly visible to anyone passing by. He nodded, pleased with his work.

"So Reese called you?", Olivia prompted him as she sipped her lemonade.

"Yeah." Ted's face dropped and assumed a kind of doomed look. He knew he was getting dragged into something against his will.

"_And?_ What did she say?", Olivia persisted. Why was it men never knew how to recount a juicy story?

"She asked if I knew where Charlie was. We didn't talk long, I was driving."

"But what did she _sound_ like?", she insisted.

"She sounded like Reese. Bad-tempered, but she always sounds that way." Reese made him feel ill at ease, in fact he had used the excuse that he was driving to keep the conversation as short as possible, he knew that the longer they talked, the more likely he was to trip himself up.

"And you told her that he left? What did she say? Did she sound mad at him? Do you think they had a huge fight?" Olivia's eyes went wide imagining the scandalous possibilities.

"I told her that I didn't know where he was. That's not a lie." Ted raised both hands in a 'don't shoot' gesture, he knew enough about Dani Reese to understand that lying to her was not a good idea.

"But you definitely think something happened between them?", Olivia wanted dirt, damn it.

"Oh, totally.", Ted confirmed.


	29. Chapter 29

**_A/N: Thanks for persevering, you guys! And thanks for reviewing bappled and silversurf4 and lipamo. And huddy! Hi! So glad that I tempted you out of hiding. And all you other silent guys - thanks. I hope I can continue to hold your attention. _**

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><p>Charlie exhaled beneath the hot water and directed one jet to massage a tight knot in his shoulder while allowing the main cascade to run over his head. Showering and being mindful of his own body under the hotel-scented foam only led him to think about hers again.<p>

It had been dark in her room save for a slit of window where the blind wasn't fully pulled. The moon illuminated just enough, his hands had figured out the rest. He remembered them working together to uncover her fevered skin. His shirt was history, his pants undone and slipping over his hips. Only her jeans to go. But instead of pushing them down, she had backed up, was kneeling just out of his reach on the bed and had slipped her hand inside the front of them. His mind bent in that moment. Too much and she had to know it. Her finally letting him touch her was one thing, her touching herself in front of him was just about enough to kill him. Charlie felt his switch flip and surged forward, snapped her onto her back and crawled after her up the bed. He heard her give a satisfied half-laugh which he sucked away once he gained on her, pulling at the denim ravenously until she deigned to cooperate and wriggled free. But she wouldn't be held; she wanted to rule him, to be on top. Typical Dani, he thought. He let her scramble from under him and gain the position she wanted on his lap but fought against the pressure she applied to the center of his chest to hold him down; she wasn't going to get it all her own way. Charlie snatched her wrists and sat up, rising to meet her, roughly kissing away her competitive smile. He stilled her. For that moment at least she was docile, the nails that had scratched him raw now tickling his scalp gently as she played with his hair and melted into him. He was anything but relaxed, both hands sunk inside her underwear, clasping the roundness he had secretly tracked around the office for months, his heart jackhammering and in serious danger of stopping entirely.

"Shit..._Crews_...", she opened her eyes and whispered against his lips, breathing hard.

"I know. _I know_.", he sighed in response.

He had lied. He didn't _know _anything. As he stood there massaging the shampoo into his hair, he tried to recreate the way her fingers had touched him and wondered what that exchange had meant. He realized that this was the closest they had got to talking about it. He knew what _he_ had meant. He was expressing wonder. He meant that being there like that with her was even better than he had ever imagined and it made him so happy he could die. He meant that he was in love with her and even though he had known it for a while, the intensity of it now that it was stirred up with such heady lust astonished him. That's what _he_ meant. But what had _she_ meant? Whatever it was, she obviously felt the lust thing the same way he had, of that much he was sure.

After they were done and he had slept the immediate nap of the sated lover, he stared into the dark and replayed over and over her words and intonation and expression at that moment they had paused, the calm before the storm, interpreting them in different ways each time, allowing those interpretations to grow ever more paranoid and pessimistic. This was the kind of thing he used to do in solitary. As if there weren't enough people in there out to get him, his chief torturer was always himself, a special type of misery was his side of the walls even if he was the only soul in the cell. He concluded that Dani had been trying to express her trepidation that what they had done, what they had still been about to do at that point, was going to cause them real trouble. But that they were going to do it anyway. And she was right because they had both been way too far gone to exercise any prudence by that point.

He lay there and stared at the planes of her body illuminated by what little light there was, her back exposed, having rolled away from him to sleep. In a little while, she was going to turn over to face him and suggest that all this didn't mean that anything had to change between them. He wondered what he would do with his face when she said the words. His eyes would betray that he wouldn't be able to just shrug this off. She was wrong, things had changed. As far as he was concerned the world already looked very different. So he decided to leave. If they were going to have that conversation then fine, he would be ready for it, but he just didn't want to face it right now. Not with the feel of her still so recent. He didn't want to see her disappointment in him when she read how disappointed he was.

So he had gathered his clothes and crept away, limbs throbbing with the hum of the lovelorn, cursing when he stood on a shard of the lamp as he retrieved his tie from the couch.

He emerged pink from the steam ten minutes later, plush hotel towel secured about his waist, flopping down on the bed aimlessly. He picked up his phone again.

_Missed call Dani Reese (2)._

"Oh boy.", he sighed.

He knew he had to face the music, and quicker than he thought. Far from having had time to get his head straight, he had only managed to stir himself up further. With the air of a condemned man, he pulled out a gray t-shirt and a pair of linen pants from his bag, dressed and took his phone out onto the balcony.

"Hello? Hi. It's me."


	30. Chapter 30

"Charlie?"

"So. I'm just checking in. Everything okay?", he fished.

"Checking in? At the airport? Do you know where you're going now?", asked Ted.

"No. _Checking in_ as in calling to say I arrived already. It's pretty nice.", said Charlie, surveying his surroundings once again.

"Already? Charlie, you only left like two hours ag-...", Ted paused, screwed his eyes up a little, and shook his head, confused. "Wait. Where, Charlie? _Where_ are you?"

"At the beach.", Charlie replied, matter of fact.

"The beach _where_?", Ted was getting exasperated.

"Santa Monica."

"You're in SANTA MONICA?!", Ted exclaimed into his cell. "Not Mexico? Aruba? Hawaii? _Florida_ even?".

"No, Ted, Santa Monica."

"You've gone on vacation to a place thirty minutes from your home." Ted stated; it was not a question.

Ted was quiet for a few seconds as his confusion dissolved into something more like disbelief. He shouldn't be surprised, he told himself, this was Charlie Crews.

"Yeah. It's fancy. Right on the beach. I took a suite, it's huge. And a _terraza_, the concierge guy called it, and a plunge pool and this really cool shower..."

"You're on vacation a few miles from your house, in a hotel that has all the same stuff that your house has." Another statement.

Olivia wandered past and caught what Ted was saying. No question that he was speaking with Charlie. "And they say that travel broadens the mind...", she muttered mostly to herself but managing to distract Ted with her sarcasm. He waggled his brows at her to go answer the door to the pool guy who had come to fix the filter. Olivia was not one to be dismissed but she was happy enough to step away from another Crews drama. On the way she reflected that she may have narrowly escaped becoming that man's stepmother but Charlie Crews was already a bigger part of her daily life than he would have been had she married his father.

"We don't have the ocean at home.", he argued. "Hey Ted, maybe we should move to the beach? I can see girls playing volleyball from here..."

"Charlie. Why don't you come home?"

"But I'm on vacation, I'm having a good time."

"Are you, Charlie? Or are you..._hiding_...from something?"

"I'm not hiding, Ted."

Was he hiding? He didn't think he was hiding exactly, but the fact that he had effectively marched himself right into solitary confinement as soon as the going got tough did not escape him. His 'cell' at the beach was somewhat more comfortable than Pelican Bay, but he was still completely alone. At least he was no longer living in fear of a beating, he mused, sunstroke was the most immediate risk. Charlie made his way back across his terraza out of the sun. Maybe he was hiding, he thought.

Ted wandered back into the kitchen and lowered his voice. "If it's because you need your space, you know I've been thinking about maybe asking Olivia to move in with me. Someplace else, you know, of our own?", he confided. "Then you can have your house back, your privacy."

"Ted, that place has like eight bedrooms. If I needed privacy I could find it." Charlie was both pleased that things were going so great between Ted and Olivia and dismayed that they might soon leave him.

"Ten bedrooms. Eleven if you include the den.", Ted corrected.

"We have a den?", Charlie joked in order to make his point. "I'm just going to stay out here a while and meditate. The ocean, the waves, they help me to think."

"Don't you tell me that the whole point of meditation is _not_ to think? I thought it was about breathing and just _being_?"

"Okay, so the ocean helps me _not think_." Charlie wondered how everyone was an expert these days.

"So Reese called me.", Ted said neutrally, looking out at the pool from the kitchen window.

"She did?", Charlie replied, glancing out at the horizon, attempting to sound equally casual. "How was she?".

"Um...", Ted considered a range of adjectives. "Businesslike.", he settled on, diplomatically. "Have you two been fighting?"

"Not exactly. What did you say to her?"

"That I didn't know where you were."

Ted heard that Olivia had come back into the room behind him and turned around. Whatever words he had been about to speak to Charlie turned to ash in his mouth and dropped to the floor. Dani Reese was standing in front of him with her arms crossed, Olivia arriving hot on her heels looking apologetic.

"Okay, so thank you. Uh, I'll call you back.", he blustered hurriedly and hung up.

"You're not the pool guy.", he said to Dani, not sure how long she had been there or what she had heard.

"No, I'm not the pool guy. But I'll hold your face underwater until you tell me where Crews is.", Dani menaced.


	31. Chapter 31

"Start talking, Early." Something about the angle of Dani's eyebrows promised pain.

"I told you before, I haven't seen him.", Ted held both hands up to protest his innocence but still managed to look as guilty as sin, mainly because he was.

"Look, Ted, don't fuck with me. I do this for a living. I'm better at it than you are. What happened the last time you lied to the cops? Two years in Pelican Bay, wasn't it?"

Olivia was offended by Dani's treatment of her man. "Hey, I don't know what's going on with you but you can't just force your way in here and talk to him like that..."

"Was that him on the phone?", Dani cut Olivia off dismissively, not even turning to look at her.

Ted glanced down nervously at the collection of medical literature he had procured for Charlie which was spread across the counter. "Uh, no. That...that was...uh...my doctor's office, I need to...I was arranging for some tests...", the moment he said it Ted cursed himself for coming up with this particular explanation.

Dani followed his eyes, the _Erectile Dysfunction _title jumping out at her. She shook her head violently. Too much information. "Look, Jesus, I don't need to know...okay? Just tell me where your roommate is.", she demanded, stepping towards him.

Fearing that Dani would really be about to blow up at Ted if she had long enough to see the reading material by Ted's side and figure that he and Charlie had been discussing her intimate business, Olivia felt the need to step in and rescue her ailing beau.

"He's gone on vacation, okay?!", she blurted, stepping forward.

Ted look up at the ceiling and then closed his eyes in disbelief._ He had one job to do..._

Dani froze mid step and her eyes snapped to Olivia. Her emotions made her body react before her self control could kick in. "Vacation?", she repeated in crestfallen surprise, her dejection showing on her face and cracking her voice, which she totally hated.

"Where?", Dani asked, embarrassed again because this time her voice came out much smaller than she wanted. _Fuck's sake, get a grip. _

In the split second before she could correct her posture, Olivia had seen Dani's shoulders drop as if she had taken a blow to the stomach and she suddenly felt a pang of sympathy for the small woman with the big mouth. She saw that she was hurting beneath the threats. Olivia knew what it was like to be given the run-around by a Crews man.

"He asked me not to say.", Ted answered apologetically.

Olivia shot Ted an angry look for making things worse, which confused him because he thought she was meant to be on _his_ side. He shrugged at her, having lost track of whether they were telling the truth or lying to Dani now. He couldn't keep up; Dani had been right, he wasn't good at this.

Dani felt that her humiliation was absolute. Not only was Crews avoiding her, he had skipped town and now it seemed that he had conspired with Ted to keep this information quiet because he obviously thought she was the type of psycho to come after him. And she was learning all this from relative strangers. She wasn't used to being on the outside looking in with Crews. This was a kick in the teeth. Well, she was going to fucking kick him back._ Right where it hurt_.

"Where?", she said again, voice steady this time but her returning anger palpable.

"Santa Monica.", Olivia confessed. She truly felt sorry for Dani, even though she barely knew her.

Ted's jaw swung open. Charlie had specifically asked him not to tell his partner where he was. He began to protest, "Olivia..."

"Shut up, Ted.", she silenced him.

That was ridiculous. "Santa Mon...", Dani started. Then she stopped. It wasn't ridiculous, it was completely in keeping with everything she knew about Crews. "Santa Monica where?"

"We don't know.", Olivia replied, earning a renewed glare from their houseguest.

"Some hotel. We don't know the name. It's on the beach, he said it was fancy...it has a _terraza_.", Ted's turn to rescue Olivia. "That's all we have." He hung his head, disappointed in himself for not having been able to keep Charlie's confidence, or at least to have held out a little longer.

Dani narrowed her eyes and appraised Ted. Having decided that she believed him, she shot him one last derisive look and turned on her heel. She was secretly impressed at his attempted loyalty to Crews but this wasn't the time to show it.

"Thanks.", she said genuinely to Olivia as she walked by, conveying a respect which had quickly burgeoned between two women who had only ever exchanged pleasantries before today.

Olivia nodded at her in silent understanding. Ted looked on in wonder and then Dani was gone.

"What just happened here?", Ted asked before withdrawing his cell from his pants' pocket once more.

"Don't you dare call him, Ted.", Olivia warned.

"Are you crazy? She looked like she's gonna kill him once she finds him. I gotta warn him..."

"No." Olivia walked over to him and closed her hand over the phone. "Just let them figure it out." She kissed him. Kissing him always worked.


	32. Chapter 32

"_Santa fucking Monica_.", Dani muttered under her breath as she put her car in drive and took off.

Her self-respect was beyond battered but she was now so committed to a course of action that she couldn't allow herself to stop. Turned out she was a whole lot weaker than she thought. It had taken her all of fifty minutes to snap this morning, enough time to straighten up her apartment a little and to grab a shower, before winding up calling Crews. The second she heard the ringtone she regretted it. The fact that he didn't pick up just made her hate herself more. She sat there for two whole minutes staring at her call history, wishing she could take it back, hating the fact that his cell phone would show that she had been the one to reach out to him first. That _killed_ her. She got so mad that she called again, intending to leave him a foul-mouthed voicemail, but then aborted the call at the very last moment. No, he would keep. Once she had spoken to a stammering Ted on his cell she figured that she didn't need to be a detective to sense that something fishy was going on.

"_Fucking vacation__?!.._.", she huffed.

She put her foot down and ignored the twenty-something jerks in the next lane who were yelling and trying to get her attention as her vehicle passed theirs. When they drew up to the lights and the assholes hopped up and down in their seats, motioning for her to buzz down her window, she turned to them coolly and removed her sunglasses which only encouraged them. Maintaining eye contact in a way the two men interpreted as a definite come-on, Dani slowly raised her badge along with one challenging eyebrow. Smiles suddenly dropped and eyes fixed ahead, the guys pulled away slowly, suddenly model citizens on the highway. _Men__. _She was in no mood to be fucked with.

She told herself that this was about her partnership with Crews. That no matter what had gone on the night before, she was chasing him down in order to let him know that the way he was treating _his partner _was not acceptable. Really she knew that she was upset because she felt used, or worse, rejected for some reason based on her performance, and her pride kind of demanded to know which it was. She was not just some girl he had met at a bar, for fuck's sake, and she would not be dismissed as such. Is this how he behaved with women? Did he now see her as a woman, rather than his partner, or, even though she frequently denied that they were categorized as such, a woman rather than his friend? She realized that she did not want to be _just_ a woman to him and had she understood this at the outset, it would have been reason enough alone never to go there. _  
><em>

Even so, her mind kept on slipping back to it as she drove. She shouldn't kid herself that their partnership was as sacred as she claimed. How easily it had burnt into something different, something else, as soon as they started taking each other's clothes off. They had wrestled and fought all the way to their mutual goal, in a silent understanding that it was all part of the fun. She recalled her lips grazing his forehead as she rose and fell above him. She loved the way he had only allowed her to push him so far before he pushed back. More than with anyone else, she had really, _really_ enjoyed giving in. She had enjoyed calling the shots, dictating the pace, but her stomach lurched like never before when he flipped them, tired of acting passive, intent on bringing it home. She got lost thinking about the way his fingers splayed over her throat, not to dominate, not so as to threaten her, but just to hold her still and just...right. _Just right_. Aware that she was no longer paying much attention to the road, she checked the rear view mirror and hunched over the wheel to suppress the tingle that had started to rise up her spine. _Dani, no. _

She had trusted him unconditionally; Crews was safe. But not Tidwell-safe. Since her FBI posting she had known that things with Tidwell had just been a dry run, her first exploration of an adult relationship without drugs, booze and jeopardy. Crews was rock solid but with an edge, although he presented himself as uncomplicated he was anything but. Still slightly unknowable, he provoked in her an out-of-her-mind type of lust made all the more intoxicating because he was kind of off limits. Their connection was supposed to be above all that. But it wasn't any longer. He was her partner; she was supposed to cooperate with him, rely on him, fight for him and protect him. She wasn't supposed to fuck him. She didn't have anybody else like that in her life, he was kind of everything. _Everything_. This was something of a personal epiphany for Dani but she wouldn't be sharing any of it with Crews because, as she told herself as she caught her first glimpse of the beach, she was going to rip his dick off.

Dani looked out towards the ocean. She had a vague idea of where she was headed and had arrived before she knew it. Driving up to the fancier real estate, she could see two main contenders and tried to decide which of the exclusive frontline hotels Crews would be most likely to pick. One was an older building, the other newer and constructed chiefly of glass and steel. She heard echoes of Nevikov's drawl calling her partner '_Detective New Money_' and considered Crews' predilection for flashy sports cars.

Glass and steel it was.


	33. Chapter 33

So he wasn't at the glass and steel hotel. Every time she thought she had this man down, he surprised and confounded her. She gazed at the next establishment along, a few hundred metres down the line. It was an older, more sophisticated affair. She moved her car. By the time she entered the building she was undeterred but a little less sure of herself than she had been all morning. He did this to her, she couldn't explain why.

This had to be the place, _had to be_. There was no sign out front, just a black plaque on the wall as she entered. Polished marble denoted money but it was understated, spartan even. There were no room rates on display anywhere. She looked around the lobby and figured that the guests here weren't the type to have to worry about a few hundred dollars per night here or there. Crews would fit right in but she could imagine Ted's raised eyebrows when settling his roommate's credit card balance this month.

"Madam?", the slick-looking guy behind the front desk said warmly in some kind of European accent. "Welcome. Can I have your luggage brought through?"

The man's eyes flitted from hers down to her feet and back again and she thought she detected the beginnings of suspicion on his face, from not having registered any jewelry, not a single Gucci item, nor any other marker of wealth typical of his regular patrons for that matter. It was as if he could smell the fact that she worked for a living, that she was of immigrant stock. And he didn't like that smell. She stood there in her sweater, which was cashmere and not cheap by any means dammit, her nondescript black jeans and the trusty boots she had worn for years and she suddenly felt as if she obviously didn't belong. Any such poke at her insecurities, even if they were insecurities that she didn't know she had until right now, just made Dani Reese come out fighting. _Little shit_.

She smiled tightly. "No, no bags. I need to know if you have a guest by the name of Crews." Straight to the point. She could ignore his disdain, she told herself, she was bigger than that.

"_Madam_,", he said patronizingly. "I'm sure you appreciate that we guarantee our guests total privacy." So Serge had mistaken Dani for press. The hotel was probably popular with A-listers Dani figured, she had noticed what had looked to her like an entourage on their way to the bar as she entered the small lobby.

"How about I go room to room and find out for myself?" Dani flashed her badge for the second time that day, she didn't have time for this.

"_Madam_...", started Serge, keen to avoid a scene.

"Call me '_Madam_' one more time and we'll have a problem. It's '_Detective_' to you, uh, _Serge_.", she said, reading from his tastefully embossed name badge.

He looked at her cautiously once more, assessing whether she was for real. He decided that she was. He checked his computer. "I can confirm that we have a guest under that name. _Detective_."

"Room number?", asked Dani impatiently.

Serge leaned in and lowered his voice, "Are you here to make an arrest? Could I ask that you do so..._discreetly_? I can have your vehicle brought around to the service entrance? It's just that I need to think of the other guests and our..._ambience_.."

"I don't give a shit about your _ambience_. You have five seconds to give me the room number. If not, I'll call for back-up and this place will be crawling with uniformed police officers inside ten minutes. Sirens and all. We'll see how your guests like that."

"512.", said Serge immediately.

"Attaboy, Serge.", she pushed away from the desk and stared him down as she called the elevator.

She stepped inside the elevator and hit the button for floor five, which was already illuminated. A member of hotel staff stood against the mirrored back wall, a gorgeous young man with long eyelashes as black as his hotel shirt and tie.

"Room 512?", Dani asked him.

The boy looked a little surprised and then nodded anxiously. "I'm sorry for the delay, we had to send out for the freshest possible." He looked out at her from behind all those lashes and the biggest, most ornate, selection of fruit she had ever seen.

"No problem. Looks great.", she smirked, dipping into her jeans pocket for a tip.


	34. Chapter 34

**_A/N: So I guess I had better get on with it rather than risk a revolt! I don't mean to test your patience, I just don't have the time to write enough before my weekly deadline is up, so apologies for this being slow and piecemeal. Thanks to the new followers and to my beautiful reviewers bappled, lipamo, CCAA, huddy, and to silversurf (you can't stay away/stop writing 'cause you're like my muse or something! Can't wait to catch up with your latest tale once this is done but I can't do so yet because we may cross-pollinate!)._**

* * *

><p>Charlie had been a little baffled by Ted's abrupt ending of their call. But this wasn't the front page news here; the crucial information was that Reese was looking for him. She at least wanted to see him.<p>

He sat on the ground just inside the double doors that gave onto the terraza, sheltering in the shade afforded him by the slight overhang of the roof but still able to stare out at the sand and the rolling waves. That was him all over, he thought, never quite feeling able to enjoy all that he had.

She had been all he had thought about for the longest time. In fact, he could no longer remember a night when he didn't go to sleep by meditating on some little feature, a tiny detail, of Dani Reese. Sometimes it would be the nape of her neck. Other times the slight curl of the tip of her ponytail. A line in her frown. The way she bounced one leg on the other when she tried to suppress her impatience. The barely perceptible smudge of lipstick she left on her discarded coffee cup. It had overtaken everything else, even his obsession with Raybourn and Nevikov, the Bank of America and the conspiracy against him. He knew that there was more out there, that they would still be watching, but he didn't care. When Reese got wrapped up in all that, got taken and then was found, he had discovered what was really important. He was no longer consumed by the need for revenge; he would call a truce so long as they left her alone. All his lines of inquiry had led him to an answer of sorts, it just hadn't been the answer he expected.

He crossed his legs, extended his back, held his head high, rested his hands on his knees and pushed out his chest. _Breathe_. He concentrated on inhaling and exhaling the salt of the tide.

His stomach growled, throwing him off just as he was starting to settle. He ignored it, flared his nostrils, squeezed his eyes shut and experienced a flashback of his hands running over Dani's thighs. Eyes snapped open in case it consumed him. _Breathe!_

It was no good. He was going to have to call her.


	35. Chapter 35

He really needed to start checking the peephole before opening the door.

Mercifully, he wasn't met with a bullet this time but a shower of fruit at warp speed instead; cherries, oranges, apples, guava, an apricot hitting him squarely in the face, the spiky leaves of a pineapple grazing his arm as he stood there being pelted, spatters of grape juice burst against his chest. It was like some surreal juice commercial.

Through the shock and riot of color raining down on him, peaches and watermelon flying past his ears, he spotted 5 feet 4 inches of scowling Persian-Irish fury at the door. She was yelling, sure, but in the midst of the attack the only words he actually caught were "...fucking _prick_!". She was as pissed as he'd ever seen her.

His cheek hurt from the apricot, he suspected that it hadn't been ripe. Having jettisoned the contents, Dani then swung the fruit platter through the air, metal connecting with his chest and midsection, causing him to double over winded. As he wheezed, she shoved past him into his room, leaving him coughing face-to-face with the bewildered Room Service guy, who had stuck around to see his precious cargo delivered.

"Um, should I call security?", the young man asked Charlie nervously.

"Yes!", yelled Crews, hand pressed to his cheekbone.

"No!", hollered Reese from behind her partner.

"Um...", hesitated the boy, technically having just witnessed an assault, albeit an unconventional one. "I thought she was staying here. Is she your wife?", he asked hopefully.

"Uh, no.", Charlie shook his head emphatically.

"Hell no! Never in his wildest dreams!", shouted Dani.

"Ummm..." The boy scratched the back of his head, unsure.

"It's okay, I got this. Really. Thanks.", Charlie passed him a handful of bills and began to push the door closed.

"Dial zero for front desk..if you need to...I mean...they can get security here in like a minute.", the young guy whispered into the crack before he disappeared from view.

The door clicked shut. Charlie turned towards Dani, pacing up and down the rug, still agitated but rage under control now. Although he could easily detail her every feature, enough so that the forensic artist guy back at the station could produce a portrait of his partner the stuff of photo realism, he somehow wasn't prepared for how beautiful she was. That stabbing pain in his stomach started up again.

He approached but took a step too far and stopped abruptly when she flinched and her heckles rose with his nearness. The last thing he should do was try to touch her, he told himself. Even on a good day, that was not acceptable. He wasn't sure what that made last night...an exceptional day, maybe? Something like the comet that passes earth once every five hundred years?

"Dani?", he said softly, trying to placate.

He saw her realize that he hadn't called her _Reese_, that it implied a change in their relationship. Too much? Too quick? Hell, if she was going to object to him using her first name maybe they shouldn't have done what they did last night. He was pretty sure that _that_ implied a change all right. Perhaps that's what she was here to tell him.


	36. Chapter 36

"Dani?"

He was standing too close and using her first name. _Who the fuck does he think he is?_ She realized that it had been she who set the stick of dynamite under all their boundaries last night; it was too late for her to complain now. He just better not try to touch her.

Having been so focused on just locating him, Dani realized that she hadn't really thought through what she actually wanted to say to him when she found him. Short of calling him an asshole, that was, and she had taken care of that in the first five seconds of being there.

She was wrong-footed suddenly, standing in this fucking palatial hotel room with him in front of her barefoot and wearing fucking yoga pants. He looked every bit the casual, carefree millionaire. Like he had just stepped off his yacht or something. His clothing was kind of low-key and rumpled, totally different from the sharp suits he wore at work, but when she looked closer she saw that those pants were fine linen, that his t-shirt probably contained more silk than some of her 'silk' underwear. He had the kind of wealth that didn't need screaming about, she realized, that was why he wasn't staying at the ostentatious glass and steel hotel next door. He had a quiet, self-assured wealth that meant that he would never have to tolerate anything other than material perfection as long as he lived. He had settled in to his fortune now. This place was just plain _nice, _as nice as a hotel by the ocean could be. His pants were _nice_. _And_ _shit, they fit him well_, she noted before ripping her eyes away, cursing herself. _So what, Dani? It's no secret that he's filthy rich, he has been for as long as you've known him. What difference does the money make now? _All this raced through her mind, the seed planted by fucking Serge the concierge downstairs, and it dawned on her that while she had always considered herself and Crews to be the same, he might not see it that way. _Maybe he wants a_ '_nice' woman to go along with all this? _The idea that maybe Crews thought she wasn't good enough for him chipped off another little chunk her self-worth, damage which had started years ago at the hands of her father.

Consumed with all this negativity and self doubt, she was very nearly physically off balance. If he touched her now she might fall. Shit, she wanted him to touch her. In times like these she would typically reach for a bottle just to steady herself.

She had no idea what to say to him.

_If__ in doubt_, _attack_. _Get the first blow in before he has the chance._

"What the fuck are you doing here?", she demanded.

"What the fu-...? What are _you_ doing here, Dani? You wanna get that poor kid fired? And my fruit...it's _everywhere_!", he stood before her indignantly, gesturing behind him at the door with his thumb.

She didn't know what the fuck she was doing there. If it wasn't for the fact that he was closest to the door maybe she would run.

"How did you know where to find me, anyway?" He was tense. He reached around to rub the back of his neck, causing his shirt to ride up at the front slightly.

_Don't do that thing with your shirt._ She could see a slither of his navel. "I'm a fucking Detective, Crews.", she crossed her arms and looked at the rug instead.

"The best I know.", he was trying to calm her down. He dared shoot her that crooked, fond smile. But still she scowled back. "Ted?", he asked.

"It was Olivia who ratted you out, actually." She could see what he was trying to do here, get her talking about a peripheral point until she either cooled down or forgot she was mad. Well, it wasn't going to work. She put her hands on her hips.

Crews nodded as if that made total sense, he knew he could count on Ted. Olivia, on the other hand, well, she seemed to confuse Charlie with his father a lot of the time and she was clearly still mad at him.

"So...", he said.

"So...?", she parroted back at him, expectantly.

He looked uncomfortable. This was a challenge, she saw. Who was going to make reference to it first? The fact that they had slept together. Not her. She could wait a million years.

"How are you...", he started, "...after...um...you know..?", he faltered.

"How _am_ I?", she raised her eyebrows, trying not to lose her cool once more. "I'm fine.", she gave him her answer through tight lips.

"You are?"

"Yeah. Don't I seem fine? How do I seem to you, Crews?"

"Um...you seem pissed actually. Yeah, pretty pissed..."

"_Pissed? _Now why would I be pissed, I wonder?" She saw him brace himself. "Let's see, shall we? Did I break a nail? Uh, no. Stub my toe? Get caught in traffic? No, none of those, Crews." She glowered at him. "Did my partner of three fucking years treat me like some clueless badge-bunny slut he picked up at a bar? Like the past three years, like none of all that..._stuff..._happened?", she had stopped yelling and couldn't hide her hurt for a second. "That might just be it. '_Pissed_' doesn't really cover it, Crews."

"Hey. I would never treat you like that, Dani..." He was shaking his head so fast she thought he might scramble his brains. He moved to touch her arm but stopped when she tugged her shoulder away in anticipation.

She was on a roll. Normally she wouldn't do this, she wouldn't show a guy her hand. Normally she would just fuck him up, waltz out of there and never see him again. But this was Crews. She couldn't let him go even if she tried.

"I woke up. You were gone. You didn't answer my calls. Now you're fucking _hiding out_ at the beach? From your hysterical bitch partner?! Did you laugh about me with Ted when you asked him to cover for you? Warn him I might come looking for you because I can't get enough of you?" She shook her head. "You know what, Crews? _Fuck you. _I guess I gave you way too much credit."

Her tirade was hitting home, she could tell it was. He looked stricken. She had him on the ropes.

"On Monday you can go see Tidwell, request to ride with Seever again. I don't want you in my car."

Shit, she didn't realize she was still jealous about him and Seever...but there it was, the killer blow. She didn't mean it of course but she could not stop herself.

His face. His expression was horrified and then mad, in that quiet, menacing way of his. He took a step forward. If she thought he was too close before, he was practically on top of her now. She felt every cell of her body keening for his. Funny that she should be in the process of bawling him out and pushing him away when she couldn't remember ever wanting him more.

He towered over her. She could have sworn he had grown six inches taller overnight.

"Are you done?" He looked her in the eye, almost intimidating.

"First of all, I'm not hiding out, I just wanted a little space. To think. And as I guess you saw, Ted and Olivia are at home and well, three's a crowd, right?"

She shifted slightly, trying to wriggle out of his glare but he mirrored her movement, not allowing her to escape.

"And Ted doesn't know that we...I didn't tell him about...anything. _I wouldn't_."

His expression softened into something solemn. "And I would never, _ever,_ treat you like you were just some...just _anyone_. I left because I couldn't sleep and I thought you'd be freaked out by everything and I didn't want to make things...difficult. And I _know_ what you're like in the morning."

Then he was indignant again. "And I _did_ call you...about thirty seconds before you showed up with your goddamn fruit missiles - take a look at your phone."

She put her hand to her pocket and glanced at her phone. He wasn't lying.

"And I'm not gonna request a thing from Tidwell. _You_ are my partner. Whether you want to ride with me or not."

He seemed to realize too late how that last part sounded. He ignored it and set his jaw, waiting for her to retaliate.

Crews didn't normally take this tone with her. Actually, she liked it. There was a heat to his words. Any assertion by a guy that she belonged to him would not normally go unpunished. She was no one's property, nobody's accessory. Usually she would slap the shit out of him. But hearing Crews say it at this moment, even if he did mean it in a work context, was perversely satisfying. She guessed she enjoyed the fact that she could provoke a reaction from him. Far from growing distant and cold as she had feared now that he'd had his way with her, he sounded like he didn't plan on going anywhere.

He had stood up to her and rather than making it worse, he had actually diffused their fight. Maybe it wasn't the end of the world. Maybe it was a good thing, a way of clearing the air between them. She felt a little stupid for getting so het up over all this when he was being so cool. She could do cool, too. She wouldn't show him what she was going to suggest had he been there when she had rolled over this morning.

She said nothing and considered him for a few seconds. He said nothing back.

Where was all this moody coming from?

God, he was turning her on.


	37. Chapter 37

He wasn't sure what just happened. She was crazy mad one minute, accusing him of having upped and left her in bed like he was some kind of player. He was not a player, didn't need to be, and certainly never when it came to her. It had never occurred to him that she would jump to that conclusion and he was genuinely pained that Dani had spent the morning under that impression. It wasn't like that, _at all_.

He felt like they were no longer on the outs and that was good enough for him for now. The very fact that she was _there_ was good enough for him right now. She must want to figure this out as much as he did.

She had bought what he told her. He had lied of course, said her left her apartment this morning in order to spare her feelings rather than his own, shrugged off his vacation, made it all about Ted and Olivia. Nothing to do with the fact that he was in way deeper than her and it was more painful for him now that something had actually happened between them than before when he was just daydreaming it 24/7. He had decided that his first priority had to be the preservation of their relationship at any cost; if he had to hide his feelings and sign up for eternal torture then so be it. Whatever she wanted. He just needed to _make it right _and he would follow her lead.

They had been quiet for almost thirty seconds. He could see her mind ticking over. She was calmer now but the silence was killing him. He preferred her yelling. He tried not to say something stupid just to end the tension; she hated that. Luckily Dani cracked first, shifted her weight onto one leg, broke the deadlock.

"Why did you think I'd be freaking out? You said that that was why you left."

"I don't know, Dani.", he shrugged. "After all this time? You and me? I just thought you might feel..._weird_."

"Do you feel _weird_?"

"What, that we..um..?", he definitely did feel weird, as well as a lot of other things. But she wasn't freaking out, so he shouldn't either. "Uh, no."

"You can say it, you know. The word." She looked at him impassively, he couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"What word?"

"Sex."

"Oh."

_That_ word. Just the shape her mouth made when she said it, the sound on her teeth, on her tongue, made his pants feel a fraction tighter. _Sex_. The thing was, he had had _sex_ before, but what they had done last night had been a whole lot more than that. For him at least.

"Sure. We're adults, right?", he shrugged expansively.

"Exactly. _And_ we're partners, right? It's no big deal. We should be able to be honest with each other. So that things don't get..."

"Weird?", he suggested.

"Right." She nodded decisively.

Another long silence, while Charlie tried to convince himself that he could be cool about this.

"Because it happens all the time, you know? It's way more common than you'd think."

"What is?" He was having trouble following her, his mind busy assessing context and subtext and pretext like a Detective but disobediently flitting back to his goddamn caveman instincts, his un-Zen passions. _Not helpful_.

"Sex." Jesus, he wished she would stop saying it. "Between partners, colleagues, whatever. It's never happened to you before?"

"No. Bobby Stark is a happily married man. Also, I believe he's into blondes.", he tried levity to buy himself time.

She gave only a cursory smile. "Well it goes on._ A lot_."

"Like you and Tidwell?"

"Um, sure." He could tell that her and Tidwell wasn't quite what she had meant. But she went with it anyway. "It happened, we're over it, we moved on. It's fine."

Charlie knew for a fact that Tidwell wasn't over it, hadn't moved on and was not fine.

Dani had to know that too but she glossed over it. "Like Kowalski and Jackson? They were doing it for like six months..."

What exactly was she proposing here? Partners with benefits? Some kind of arrangement? No, no, no, this was _not_ what he wanted.

"...and it didn't work out but there they are, still working the job, still out solving cases. They're good. They're fine."

Charlie nodded quietly. Dani wasn't done.

"Stacey Bryant and that guy Adam? They hooked up too."

"I heard she was having his kid and Adam's wife threw him out.", Charlie added. _Not_ _helpful_.

"Oh. Okay. Bad example.", Dani shook her head and a wavy wisp of hair at her temple escaped the others pulled back into her ponytail. He wanted to touch it.

He could see that she was struggling to think of another instance of where sex between colleagues hadn't completely screwed everything up.

"Bodner?", he offered, in order to save her from floundering.

"Bodner who shot you? No way! Who did he get with?" Dani's eyes lit up.

"Oh, his wife.", he saw her frown confusion. "His wife who was previously his partner. They've been married thirty years now.", Charlie clarified. Then realized that his clarification was no good in illustrating her point either. Just what was _he_ proposing? _Not fucking helpful._

Dani's face dropped. She bit her lip.

Charlie felt like he had to rescue this. "But I see what you're saying. I hear you, Dani. We _are_ adults. Nothing has to change."

"Right." She seemed relieved, quiet, not herself. "Nothing has to change. So Crews? Stop calling me Dani."

He raised his eyebrows at her. "We've seen each other naked but I don't get to call you by your first name?"

"No. That would be..._weird_." She smiled and he could tell she felt comfortable again, calling the shots. "Plus, it was pretty dark, I didn't see much of anything."

Charlie knew she had seen plenty. But if this was how she wanted it, this is what she would get.


	38. Chapter 38

_Nothing had to change._ What the fuck was wrong with her? Of course it had to change. It _had_ changed. She thought she had done the hard part, she reached out to him, she had made it happen. She'd had him in her fucking bed, for fuck's sake. But it turned out that the real hard part, the killer, was following through emotionally. And it appeared that this was a step too fucking far. She had overreacted, accused him of typical jerk behavior. She had been there before, fucked up a partnership, felt betrayal and just plain stupid for believing it would be any other way. But she should already have known, there was nothing typical about this jerk.

_An Emotional Cripple please, bartender._ Her very own poisonous personal cocktail; one part panic, two parts pride and seventeen parts vodka, had her back-pedalling until they were very nearly back at square one. She asked herself if she would have about-faced like this had she woken up with him this morning. She guessed not, she had fully intended to go through with it right until the second she realized he had bailed. That reminder of what rejection tasted like had been enough to burn her fingers and put her off completely.

So she had stood there and played it down, shrugged it off like they had just bumped heads. Accidents happen. He looked as confused as she felt but he was acquiescing in that way he mainly did. Keeping her sweet. The way you would when a psycho ambushes you with a fruit platter. _Jesus, Dani. _She didn't know how she was going to look at herself in the mirror ever again, her own cowardice made her sick, her pride was so ridiculous that she'd rather stand there and ask him for the exact opposite of everything she had finally admitted to herself that she wanted than take the risk.

_It happened, we're over it, we moved on_. It's fine. Did she really say that? It didn't hold true for her and Tidwell and the others, much less her and Crews. Ill-advised and badly-handled sexual relationships had blighted her career, no, her entire adult life, actually. Her lack of impulse control had a lot to answer for. _No big deal. _It was a huge fucking deal.

He was watching her. Despite the awkwardness, he seemed faintly amused. He wasn't embarrassed about it all like she thought he might be. He was employing his Zen or some shit, probably. Or maybe he just didn't care, maybe it wasn't a big deal for him. She should get out of there, get some perspective. She would feel better by the time work rolled around on Monday morning. _Ugh, work_. They would probably have to wrap up on the Jeannie Harris case, not an attractive prospect, not least because it had proven the trigger to start this whole mess with Crews and she would have to sit there thinking about that, about him thinking about that across the desk from her, while she finished filing her report. And then she would feel like shit for obsessing about her own personal, small-fry drama while that little girl lay dead and her mother would probably give anything to be dead too. _Perspective, Dani. _

She wanted out of there, time to think and calm down, but she felt like she needed to stick around to prove how _fine_ things were, how _nothing had changed_.

"So. This is where you choose to take a vacation?", she made conversation.

"Pretty nice, huh? Want to take a look around, hang out?"

No. There was nothing normal about them hanging out. They wouldn't usually do this. But she had to prove a point. That they were fine. Actually, he was really surprising her at how grown-up he was being over all this, given that he was the biggest man-child she had ever known.

"Sure." She lied. She began to wander around. It was pretty special; lofty, high ceilings, bleached wood, furnishings and fabrics in pebble gray, washed out seaweed, ozone and salt, everything elegantly weather-beaten. So much light.

"I'm thinking of moving here.", he announced.

"You're gong to live at a hotel?" Actually, she could see how it would suit him.

He joined her at the enormous window. "Sure. I like how it feels so...open and fresh...like there's no roof. It's..."

"Celestial." , she suggested.

He was looking at her in awe. "Celestial. That's it! That's the word." He smiled at her until she looked away.

Wasn't hard to figure why someone who had been locked up for so long would appreciate such space and light, the feeling of being out there by the ocean, remote and far from all the madness of people and the crazy shit they pull. She knew he looked out at the point the sky met the ocean and felt calm. He deserved it, after everything. When Dani looked at a horizon she felt only foreboding.

Something about standing there quietly with him, thinking about the way he saw things, his calm, maybe his smell, was making her regret everything; as if she missed him even though he was stood right there. She had missed the opportunity to make things different between them and she felt like she had backed herself into a corner that she now couldn't escape from. _Too late. _

"Hey, come outside and check out my terraza." He winked at her and slid back the glass door, stepped outside.

_Did he just fucking wink at me?_

She followed him, trying not to think about how hot he was. The far wall of his _terraza_ was made of toughened glass so as not to interrupt the fantastic view.

"Wow.", she admitted. The view, the pool glinting like a jewel, the breeze blowing curls of her hair loose and making his shirt billow. It was pretty ideal. "That sun lounger is bigger than my bed.", she pointed out. Until she remembered that he now knew all about the dimensions of her bed. She was grateful when he smiled at her thoughtfully but didn't comment. _Nothing has to change_.

"So, who would have thought it? You and me on a terraza?"

"Who would have thought what? That you and I would be here or that anyone would be so pretentious as to call this a _terraza_?", she snarked.

"The 'you and me' part."

"I'm pretty sure that this is exactly what people think."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on. Everyone has always thought we were...", she tried to decide how to put it. "Intimate."

"Maybe they know something we don't. Or didn't."

She looked up at him in surprise. Enigmatic Charlie was sexy, she thought. He was testing her, she recognized, trying to see where she would draw the line, what she would and would not discuss under this new policy of openness. A game of chicken, who would blush first? Not her.

"The only surprise would be that it took us this long."

"They'd have a point." He arched a brow at her.

Was he fucking flirting with her? After the conversation they just had about going back to normal? Was this the way it was going to be now? She might have known he wouldn't be able to leave it alone. She'd be angry if an electric current hadn't just started to buzz its way up her spine.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure.", she stiffened her back, summoned bravado. She wondered what was coming but told herself that whatever it was, she wouldn't flinch first.

"Did you, um..._enjoy yourself_? Last night?", he looked out at the surf.

"Jesus. Really, Crews? You need to have this conversation?"

"Come on, Dani. You said it yourself. Sex isn't a big deal. I thought we were being adult and open about this? A guy _always_ needs to know."

"Well, it's a pretty teenage question, coming from such an adult...", her first instinct was to evade again for all she was worth but she caught his fleeting expression of self-doubt before he looked away and saw that she wasn't the only one feeling vulnerable in all of this. She could be the bigger person for once. She leaned in to him a little and conceded, "If it wasn't already totally obvious...yeah, I had a good time, Crews."

"You did?", he beamed, standing up straighter.

"Twice.", she said, screwing up her face shyly. She saw him puff out his chest slightly and hoped that this wasn't too much of a disclosure.

He grinned at her, and seemed far from taking some petty little victory from this, both that it was true and that he had made her say it. He was genuinely happy. She met his smile with a smaller one of her own and began to think that maybe this was going to be okay.

This was the new normal. Kind of like the old normal but with flirting.


	39. Chapter 39

"Celestial.", she had said.

He didn't know how she did it but she would always finish his sentences, crystallizing his thoughts and expressing them much better than he sometimes could himself. It was as if she could effortlessly reach into his skull and pluck out the very word that had gotten stuck somewhere between his brain and his larynx, in this case just casually tossing it out there to perfectly describe how that hotel room at the edge of the ocean made him feel. Celestial. So much light, so much sky bouncing right off the water. Heavenly; especially now that she was there with him. It was a pretty special skill she had; he figured that you didn't come across people like that too often. Just another one of many reasons why he couldn't let her go.

She couldn't let him go either, it seemed. She had come here to find him after all. Ostensibly to kick his ass for not treating her as she thought she deserved; not as a lover but as his partner. And they had resolved that, lesson learned, so why was she sticking around? There was something else, he knew there was. When she looked at him, she looked a little too long. When he looked at her he could see in her eyes that her mind had wandered, possibly back to the same thing that he couldn't keep out of his head either. Could it be that despite what she said, they weren't done here? Charlie knew that with her more than anyone, 'no' meant 'no' in no uncertain terms. She came here to tell him nothing had to change. It was the message he knew she would deliver, the one he had been dreading, it was the whole reason he fled that morning. But 'Nothing has to change' was not a 'no', it implied that things didn't have to change but that they might. Right? He knew he was reaching. But he couldn't help feeling like she was just scared. He also knew that she found it easier to hit out at him than to show him affection, even when she fucked him she bit him just as much as she had kissed him. It was just how she was.

So he decided to push just a little bit harder. That's why he asked her what he asked her on the terraza. He wanted to keep the subject open, too see what might happen. She would much rather discuss sex than love. He could get away with asking her the most intimate sexual details but he couldn't ask her how she felt about him. Now that was, as she would put it, fucked up. But he wasn't prepared for how bashful and cute she looked when she shyly told him that he had made her come. Yeah, he already knew but he loved hearing her say it, he loved her being honest with him. Despite the ocean breeze out there all he felt was warmth. He followed her back through the glass doors a man entranced. He knew he couldn't go back to just wanting her, not now he knew how her skin felt, how her kisses tasted, how she expressed her need. And she wouldn't be able to hold him off forever, he knew it. If the sex had been no big deal then she could have waited until work on Monday to say so.

"I'm hungry. You wanna eat?", he said, hoping to keep her there with him as long as possible.

"Huh? Oh, not really." She plunged herself down on the sofa, sweeping a peach out of her way, looking pensive and like she was irritated by something.

"I'm starving.", he complained.

Dani reached down to the ground and plucked up the nearest piece of errant fruit she found. Absently, she passed an apple to Charlie, its yellow skin blushing red in places. She looked up after a few seconds when she had felt him take it but the familiar sound of a Crews munch did not meet her ears. He stared at her.

"What?", she asked in that slightly pressed tone of hers.

"Well, I never went to Sunday School but I'm pretty sure that this was the kind of thing that landed Adam and Eve in so much trouble." He tossed the apple in his hand playfully.

"One, I'm no Eve and you're no Adam. Nobody made me out of one of your fucking ribs, like some afterthought. Have you ever thought about how offensive that shit is? Two, that's not forbidden fruit, Crews, that's a fucking room service apple. Go ahead and eat it, I'm sure it's already been added to the bill you get when you finally check out of the Garden of Eden."

His smile dropped. Okay, the Bible thing was meant to be cute, maybe even a come-on. Bad idea.

Was this how it was going to be? Every little thing a provocation, him chasing, her batting him away? She was a tough nut to crack and eventually his persistence would get old, she would snap. Charlie didn't know what to do. He normally didn't have to try so hard to charm a woman, normally being polite and his natural, slightly dorky, self did the trick just fine. Was this all part of her allure? Did he like her prickles? He tried to remember what he had done the night before to provoke her lust. He recalled that he had given up when it had happened; he was kidding himself if he thought he was master of his own destiny. She was in control here, he had no say in the matter. God, that drove him crazy.

He felt pretty desperate; any time soon she would get restless and want to leave. Now that she had been there with him, he couldn't entertain staying on if she was suddenly gone. The sky would feel too big, all that air around his limbs would make him feel lost. Celestial would just become empty.


	40. Chapter 40

"So. Are you gonna help me pick up all this fruit?", he demanded, hand on his hip.

"Uh, nope.", she replied simply, grabbing the hotel magazine and flicking through its pages to emphasize just how alone he was with his scattered fucking fruit.

She watched as he hitched his pants over his knees, sank down onto the deep pile rug and stuffed the apple between his teeth defiantly, looking at her all the while with a 'Fine, I'll do it myself' expression on his face.

She was pissed with him. How was she supposed to go on as normal when he kept on bringing it up? Actually, no, she was pissed with herself. He hadn't mentioned it or alluded to it it half as much as she had thought about it in the last forty minutes. She felt like he was looking at her differently but it could all have been in her head. His mouth was saying the usual bullshit but his eyes were saying 'I know you want me'. She felt like everything was loaded. She was projecting, she guessed. She felt that electric hum in the soles of her feet and up her thighs whenever he was less than a meter away.

Now he was crawling around on the rug, retrieving peaches and oranges and kiwi with that fucking apple stuck in his mouth like a hog on a spit and she was sitting there masking her interest in his ass in those pants with a feigned passion for hotel literature. She wondered how her life had come to this.

He took a bite of his apple and drew up to her on his knees. His stomach glanced against her shin briefly. That close was too close and it both turned her on and bothered her that he would dare touch her so casually.

"Here, at least hold this.", he produced the platter and placed it on her lap. She tossed aside the magazine in annoyance.

Returning the apple to his mouth so that his hands were free, he bent down and began to transfer the fruit he had gathered into her lap. She watched him intently and he met her eyes with a quirked eyebrow and a slight smile radiating from his irises. That knowing look again. She wished he wouldn't do that. Or that his hand hadn't brushed her knee on the way down for more fruit. Was that intentional? He didn't speak because he still had the apple in place, a trick she would have to remember for future reference, she thought. He was taking his time. The crazy bastard wasn't just dumping the fruit on the platter, she realized, he was arranging it just so, making it look pretty. Whether he was doing it to piss her off, she wasn't sure. He was infuriating. She had never seen such reverence paid to bananas and grapefruit. He was absorbed in the task at hand. She watched him squeeze an apricot with a frown, giving it a suspicious deep sniff before he set it down with the rest. It wasn't for her benefit, she realized, this really was serious business to him.

Yeah. He was a fucking freak. But he was her fucking freak.

She leaned forward and plucked the apple from his mouth. He resisted at first, frowning his objection at his pacifier being confiscated but it quickly melted into a look of wonder when she took his face in her hands. He was irritating as fuck, borderline insane, actually. But also maddeningly attractive and very special. She hoped he understood just how special he was. She kissed him emphatically. Apple juice. Dani felt her irritation disappear almost immediately, like a burst bubble, on contact with his lips, through touching his face. As soon as one negative emotion subsided, the next popped up. The panic rose once more as she acknowledged her loss of control. Free falling again. She didn't know what she was doing but she did know that this, these moments with him, they were going to keep on happening until she faced up to it. It was kind of inevitable.

For someone who was always fidgeting, always in motion, he was remarkably still as she held his face, bearing down on him, kissing him softly but insistently. As they broke and she heard him start murmuring.

"Wait, wait, Dani. Hold up."

She groaned inwardly, assuming that he was going to start again with the questions she couldn't answer, same as last night. But he sprang to his feet, whisked away the fruit platter that had lain between them and quickly resumed his position on his knees at her feet, eagerly presenting her with his face for more kissing. Like a dog begging his next treat. She waited a few beats, just longer than was comfortable, before she obliged. As soon as she moved the barest millimeter in his direction, Dani felt him rear up and pull her to him, shimmying between her legs to kiss her deeper, clasp her tighter. She felt relieved to have him in her arms again, relieved to have given in to her feelings and for once for being true to herself. She guessed he felt the same but he wasn't talking, far too absorbed in enthusiastically chasing her mouth with his, running his hands over her thighs, pulling her by the ass until she teetered on the edge of the couch.

When she finally pulled away from him, Crews was fairly gasping for breath. No quips, no questions, he just rested his head against her ear and the side of her face until his oxygen levels recovered.

"Come up here.", she patted the spot on the couch next to her.

He unravelled himself from her quickly and obeyed, sitting quietly by her side. Now what? She risked a look at his face and found that he was staring down at his lap, as serious a she had ever seen him. What now? He seemed nervous. She put a tentative hand out to touch his arm.

"Crews?"

"You know, once we could call a mistake.", he didn't look at her. "Twice...well, that'd be...something else."

"I think that 'something else' is an accurate description of what's going on here, don't you?", she stared over at him until her words hit home and he looked up, startled.

It was hardly a declaration of love but it was an admission of...something...and it still cost her. Dammit, she hoped he knew that even this much was a really fucking big deal.

Whether he realized or not, it was enough to encourage him. Crews lunged forward and pressed her down into the couch to find out what something else felt like. For Dani it felt like the marrow in her bones had turned to lava.


	41. Chapter 41

_**A/N: Huddy, Lilly, bappled, lipamo; you give me strength. These guys are driving me crazy too! I hope I can give you the payoff you all deserve for sticking with me. Lipamo - thanks as **_**_ever for your effervescent enthusiasm and don't you know that lines are there to be crossed? ;)_**

* * *

><p>He sure meant business. He obviously wanted to pick up right where they left off last night. Part of her might have objected if it wasn't for all the other parts of her being overwhelmed, fairly melted into the couch with kisses like fizzing, bubbling, boiling sugar. They had been going at it for under a minute and he was already grappling with her jeans, probably recalling the trouble he'd had getting her pants off the night before. She realized that it was all going to go off right there on the couch and the more he kissed away her reason, the less of a problem Dani had with that. He had that urgent, passionate, borderline rough thing going on, that aspect of him that had so surprised her the night before and drove her wild. <em>Fuck, yes.<em> She moved her fingers down to where his were fumbling. She meant to offer support but he seemed to think she was trying to interrupt his progress. His hands sprang back, scalded.

"Too fast?" He nodded his head rapidly as if he was in total agreement and pulled away. "Sorry. I'm just..._you're_ just so..."

"Crews, it's okay. It's fine. I wasn't..."

For the second time, she took his face in her hands. She pulled him back down to their stifling heap to show him that she hadn't been trying to stop him. Far from it. She reached down and tugged at the heel of one boot, kicked off the other with her toes and encouraged him to drag her jeans over her thighs. She helped as much as she could, which wasn't much, given the panting six foot dead weight on top of her. Suddenly he succeeded and he got what he wanted, she wound her bare legs around him and felt him calm a little, his fingers exploring her skin slowly, his hand brushing over the front of her panties but not lingering, coming to rest finally on her sweater. She sensed another stall in momentum when he sighed.

"I want..." He sat up a little and looked at her, serious.

She figured that he was just doing that gentlemanly thing of his, checking that she wanted to continue. Surely her half-stripping for him was enough of a clue.

"Yeah, Crews. I _want_ too. Don't worry.", she assured him, hoping to distract him with another kiss.

"No, Dani. You don't understand. I want...to take care..."

Take care? What the fuck was he talking about now? She didn't know why he always did this, let her build up this head of steam only to start up with his bullshit and frustrate her beyond words. It had to be his number one annoying habit, top of a very long list of things he did that drove her to the edge of sanity.

He was propped up on one arm, the other hand stroking the hem of her sweater. Her sweater, for fuck's sake. There she was, hot and heavy and ready to go and he was admiring her sweater. He seemed deep in thought. Now was no time for thinking. His fingers trailed down over her stomach and began to fiddle with the little bow that adorned the top of her panties. More promising, she thought, but she still didn't get what the problem was.

"Take care? What do you mean? Like birth control? It's a little late to be worrying about that, Crews, but I have it covered..."

His hand was so close to where she wanted it to be but she knew that the longer they talked, the more scope there was for this thing to go wrong.

"No, not that. I wanna take care _with you_. This time I want to do it right."

"You didn't do it wrong last time, Crews.", she reminded him. She thought they had been through this.

"No, but I wasn't mindful. I didn't take care."

She started to roll her eyes but he looked so apologetic that she couldn't get mad. Plus, she could feel him tracing tantalising shapes with his finger over the lace of her underwear as they spoke. As if he had absolutely no idea what he was doing to her. This wasn't over yet.

"So...go ahead and take care.", she shrugged. Anything so he wouldn't stop touching her.

Right answer. He shifted his weight back over her and gave her the softest, slowest, hottest kiss she'd ever been given whilst breaching her panties with his fingers, teasing his hand between her and the lace. If this was what he had meant, he could take all the care he wanted. Dani tipped her head back to invite his mouth to her throat and raised her knocking knees around him. He touched her softly, stroking her with a gentleness that almost made her feel violent in return, never quite going far enough to relieve her growing desperation, exploring her everywhere except the exact place she needed him. She already knew that he knew where that spot was. She guessed that was the point. The more she twisted and bucked her hips to force his hand closer, the more still he became, her mouth turning dry under his while she melted below the waist. Her frustration peaked when he seemed to finally be about to give her what she wanted but feinted at the last second, withdrawing his hand completely and taking to ghosting lines up her inner thigh instead. A tiny groan escaped her without her consent. She felt him smile against her jaw. _Bastard_. To hell with taking care, this was torture because Dani had little patience at the best of times. She guessed his sole reason for being was to torment her. Even when he was fucking her he couldn't help antagonizing her. And just like the coke, as much as the booze, she simply couldn't get enough. She wished he would just pull her panties away and do it to her right there, she didn't care that it would all be over in a matter of seconds. She wanted the other Crews back, the man from the night before, the lover just as hasty and impulsive as she was. Now his hypnotic tickle of her inside leg was building a tension all of its own too. Enough. When he kissed her again, she bit at him, she ground against him to provoke him right on back. She would fight dirty if that's what he wanted.

"Crews. Come on. Let's go.", she urged.

He ignored her but went back to touching her through her underwear.

"Fuck, Crews. Quit teasing.", she grabbed at his back beneath his t-shirt and clawed at him.

She felt him draw his lips to a spot just under her ear and drawl against her neck. "Call me Charlie, Dani." And he sucked her skin, grazing her with his teeth.

Dani screwed up her face. He was Crews to her. He had been Crews for more than three years. She didn't like the thought of that changing. She didn't like him telling her what to do, either. But at the same time she kind of did, especially with his hand located where it was. It became clear that this was transactional, if she gave him what he wanted then he would reciprocate.

"Say it, Dani.", his breath was ragged and she knew that he was as far gone as she was. He scratched his fingernails in tiny spirals over lace.

"Charlie...", she exhaled into his ear and felt him immediately slip his hand between her legs to forage for the spot he had so far ignored. She had to admit that it was quite some reward. He made long, languid strokes up and down, quickening with her breath until she said his name again and found that once she had started saying it, she just couldn't stop. She wasn't sure how many times she said it, she kind of lost her hearing in the tumult, but once he had brought her up and down again she opened her eyes expecting to see him grinning at her like he had won. _Shit_.

But he wasn't grinning. He was looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face and he was quiet. Not like Crews at all. Maybe more Charlie. She brought a trembling hand to his cheek and fingered a red, wiry sideburn, noticing how his hair started to tease into waves when it grew past a certain length. As her breathing recovered to something near normal, she became aware that his had not, that while she had claimed initial relief, he was as stricken as she had been before she gave in and called him Charlie.

She was going to have to do something about that.


	42. Chapter 42

**_A/N: CCAA, so happy to have you back (I know I owe you a read and review but I got to get this out first)! And silversurf, where you been? Why aren't you writing?! thanks so much but I think you give me too much credit. And bappled and huddy and Lilly and my little line-surfer lipamo...thank god you're here to share my madness. Cx._**

* * *

><p>It was like they had been swimming underwater for a while and Dani had just broken the surface to grab some air. Charlie was still gliding along close to the ocean floor, busy kissing her neck, his hands rooted to her ass. While she took some breaths of sweet morning air, she lay there thinking about how, right now, it all seemed much easier than she had thought. Letting go, giving in, letting him in. She was surprised to realize that she didn't feel weak. He hadn't made it difficult for her, he didn't gloat when she said his name out loud. She was expecting him to get that smirk he always wore when he was proved right in the car at work, when she was forced to admit that she <em>had <em>taken a wrong turn after all. She hated that smirk. Maybe they wanted the same thing. Maybe showing how she felt didn't have to feel like losing face. With him. His kisses were growing more pleading, his fingers found her bra, begging her to come take another swim with him. So she took another lung full of air and let him tug her down, back past the surface.

Things got feverish again remarkably quickly. He had a hand tucked round her jaw, her neck, his long fingers on her throat reminding her of the night before when he had held her still in that position and she had writhed in the deliciousness of surrender. Dani started to pull at the neck of his t-shirt, hoping to drag it clear of his head and expose some skin. But there was a jumble of arms, of hands, in her way and neither of them seemed prepared to stop kissing for long enough to do it conventionally. She tried the hem of the shirt and got it part-way up his chest; she flitted to the arms and pulled. Charlie began to laugh. Damn it, she didn't want to break the mood and give him any excuse to start goofing around, not now she had started to feel the seeds of lust bloom, the petals of another outrageous flower springing open through her pelvis.

Being on the sofa, even though it was three times the size of Dani's couch, was part of the problem. There was a whole bedroom with an enormous, plush bed just a matter of feet away. But Dani suddenly felt like she couldn't say it. She couldn't ask. A crippling shyness hit her and struck her dumb, right in the area where she was normally so direct. Luckily, he could read her mind.

"Dani?", he said softly. It sounded weird because nobody had spoken for a while. Not since she had said his name over and over, and they were both still kind of processing that sound.

"Will you come to bed with me?", he asked earnestly, echoing the night before but deliberately different. At her place, he had almost ordered her into her room. This time he was asking her. They were making a conscious decision to cross that line. _Once could be called a mistake; twice_ _was something else._

She got the subtext, of course. More than the moment when she chose to kiss him across that dumb fruit platter, this was _the_ moment. Instead of answering him, she just pushed him up and they rose from the sofa and stood there for a couple of seconds. He wound his hands around her again. She felt weird, exposed. He was still fully clothed but she was standing there in her panties and her sweater. Were they really going to do this? _Yes_. As they wandered through to the bedroom, she couldn't help but snigger at him hobbling, the bulge in those pants that were pretty tight to begin with was clearly killing him. They walked slowly, he held her loosely by the wrist, stopping to kiss her some more on the way, stumbling, pulling her arm around his waist to encourage her to hold him. The contrast with the night before was plain. They weren't scurrying around in the dark, this was the middle of the day in the lightest, brightest, airiest room she had ever occupied. There would be no hiding this time.

Once they hit the bed, she pushed him down gently and went to work on his pants, intending to go down on him and reward him for all his patience. She knew how to please a guy, she was almost on automatic pilot. But he stopped her and she frowned at him, very nearly offended.

"No. I'd just rather...be with you, than have you...do that to me...", he tried to explain.

Dani was pretty sure that a guy refusing a blow job was not a common phenomenon in nature. It certainly hadn't happened to her before. She tried to understand and figured that this was all part of his 'taking care' thing. It was all new to her but she had to admit that it had worked out okay so far, so she decided she would go with it. He pulled her up on the bed with him. She realized, to her vague horror, that she would rather be up there where she could watch his face anyway. She wanted to look at him. This was all weird, and new, and intense, and scary.

A lot of things about all this were firsts for Dani. Well, maybe not firsts, she could dimly remember a time it felt special, long ago, a guy with whom it all mattered. But she didn't remember a time that so much attention was paid to every part of her, almost worshipped. It would be embarrassing if it didn't feel so fucking good. This was more what she would have said what sleeping with Charlie Crews would be like if she had been asked a week ago. She would have guessed there would be this quasi-meditative aspect, that he would be sweet, that his main preoccupation would be her pleasure. She would have scoffed about it then, but right now she was very, very, into it. She thought maybe the fact she knew that he could also be rough and furious and could likely flip at any second saved it from feeling sickly sweet. His lips or his fingertips, sometimes both, visited her all over. Her collarbone, her hips, her navel, behind her knees, her ankles, her instep. He was slowly building her up to another crashing plummet back to earth. She responded in kind, matching his touches, his kisses, the thorough way he was getting acquainted with her body. She tried to do like him and avoid the standard path to getting a guy off, finding parts of him that made him shudder and moan. She discovered with a pang the sites on his body where he had been battered, his skin giving up mute testimony to his past. It made her curious but this was no time to bring that up. By the time he allowed her to draw him inside her, she was practically baying for him and he trained his eyes on her face to gauge her reaction as he varied his movement. When she summoned the courage to meet his eyes the intensity was almost painful and she wished they had picked a position where their heads weren't aligned. He was calm but clearly trying to keep it together. She kind of missed the frantic edge that their first time had, when he had been so wilful. It still poked through in moments, things quickened, she pushed him and he pushed right on back and it nearly slipped out of their control, but just as he started to sink he went back to treading water. Maybe she was witnessing Zen. When they stepped it up for real she realized it was just all part of the ride.

Of course Dani had been here before but this time was somewhat different. Other thumbs had skated her nipple and snapped her into some electric yogic backbend. She had torn at other fistfuls of hair while other sighs blew thermal channels down her neck and collarbone. But this was _him_. Other fingertips had traced spaghetti lines and dialled up gooseflesh across her ribs, starting fires of flame and ice. Other mouths and teeth and tongues had dampened down the embers across the soft of her stomach. But there was something so arresting about the fact that it was him this time. His touch was _more_ somehow. For so long now Dani had been having anonymous sex, either literally, with guys she didn't know and wouldn't care to know under any other circumstance, or just in the sense that it had been just physical, with everything other than her body firmly switched off. She had slept with Tidwell for months, and it had fostered affection and intimacy but she knew full well that while he was under the impression that they were making love, she always knew that something had been missing. She never blamed Tidwell for the thing that was lacking; she thought it was something lost in herself. This time, when she opened her eyes, Charlie's were there waiting for her and while it stung, it was undeniable that she knew him and he knew her. Perhaps she still had it in her after all.

He was too much; she couldn't look him in the eye. She twisted her face to the side. He made her curse. She noticed that he frowned when she did it, so she said his name instead the next time she felt overwhelmed and flooded with pleasure and unable to express it. She said it deliberately this time, _to _him and_ for _him, and she watched the huge effect that it had on him. That was real power. Dani felt like it was this, rather than any physical cue, that was going to bring things to a conclusion for him and for her. She could feel it coming like...earthquake weather. Under the pressure of its imminent arrival, Charlie lost his gentle touch and his capacity for self control. They clashed harder and faster. He gripped her hard with both hands around the band that held her ponytail in place to prevent her from looking away, so that her eyes were open and anchored in his as they came shuddering to a halt. They wallowed and drowned in it and lay together just floating.

She relaxed her grasp of him and felt how sweat pooled at the base of his spine. Sleep lapped at their bones.

He rolled away a little but stretched out his arm so that the back of his fingers touched her side.

"You're beautiful.", he whispered.

She lay on her front and looked over at him silently.

"Will you be here when I wake up?", he asked, "You're not gonna leave me here, just to get me back?"

"Try me.", she replied and saw him smile as he closed his eyes.


	43. Chapter 43

"You're still here.", he said with warmth when he came to. He had only been out maybe twenty minutes.

"So are you.", she murmured, and he thought he heard warmth there too.

He shifted forward to entwine his legs with hers and kissed her forehead before it became obvious that she wasn't done sleeping. Fine by him. He couldn't remember feeling so happy and excited since the last time she made him happy and excited.

He stared up at the oversized dark wood fan on the ceiling. It must have been a decor thing, there was no need for it, the suite had air con. Its spin and barely audible hum was very hypnotic. That could have been what had knocked Dani out, he smirked, looking over at her. He was glad they had gotten to do things right. He felt vindicated, like he had been right to wait all this time, like all they needed was time and maybe a little space at the edge of the ocean. He prayed things weren't about to turn to shit again as soon as she woke up. It should be different now but he would still have to watch his mouth, she was so volatile that the slightest slip could make her run for the hills.

It had taken every ounce of strength he had not to let things get out of hand like they had the first time. She drove him crazy on a very basic level. Pheromones, he guessed; he had once seen a thing about it on tv. Her chemicals and his chemicals mixed together created this crazy potent mushroom cloud of lust. _Boom! _It was science, he figured, and there was little place for romance in nuclear fusion. But, he countered, science was responsible for nature; fruit and trees and puppies...even giant Flemish bunnies. So maybe there was hope after all.

Ever since they started out on the couch he had been fighting to suppress all his instincts, trying not to breathe in the cloud, stifling his urge just to get to it already and satisfy them both. He didn't dare let her touch him, to undress him, until the last possible moment. She had even tried to blow him right there on the bed and he must have been nuts but he persuaded her not to. The idea of it fried his mind. The thought of that mouth, the lips he had spent months studying - the ones he knew so well that he could write novels about them - touching him anywhere near.._. Boom...meltdown! _But his Zen training and his self discipline finally paid off because when it eventually happened it had unfolded slowly and it had been beautiful. He felt like he had done justice to the way he felt about her and now he was at peace. He didn't want to go at it all white hot with her. Well, not every time, anyway. Dani clearly knew how to rock a guy's world, the hard part had been stopping her from rocking his for long enough so that he could show her the way in which he wanted her to_ love_ him_. _When she called out his name she had made him feel like a king and with every repetition he imagined another brick in her walls falling to the floor. He hoped they would stay there.

The fan span. Dani's shoulder rose and fell peacefully, her leg warm against his. The tide blew in and out beyond the window. His breathing synchronized with the universe effortlessly and he closed his eyes again.


	44. Chapter 44

She watched him while he slept.

It was a quiet, rare, reflective moment; one where she allowed herself indulge her feelings, this affection for him that she had long kept locked inside. It felt natural and right after having just expressed the lust that had accumulated over so long, like a blockage had been cleared and now her emotions could run freely. But like crying in the rain or smiling in the dark, she reached out and touched his hair, stroked his head lovingly, all while he was asleep. He wouldn't know. She thought about how fucked up it was that she had finally managed to get her head around sleeping with him but she would still find it difficult to just touch him like this, for no other reason than to feel him, if his eyes were open. Dani wondered how she came to be this way and got pissed with herself like she always did.

She withdrew her hand from her partner's head. She should get dressed, she didn't want to be fishing around for her clothes in front of him. Covering up would make her feel a little more comfortable with this whole bizarre situation somehow.

Just as she was contemplating creeping out to find her jeans, Charlie started to stir, rolling over onto his front. She wondered which tack to take and wished she could be like him, reacting to everything that came at him so naturally and honestly. He seemed to know himself. Maybe there was something in all this Zen shit after all.


	45. Chapter 45

He awoke again to the glorious sensation of her nails tickling seductive lines across his shoulder blades.

"Hmmmm.", he managed, still foggy with sleep but all parts of him stirring at the promise of her touch.

"Crews. Your back."

"Yeah. Feels nice. Don't stop.", he slurred.

"It looks like some loner kid's homeroom notebook the week before a high school massacre."

He snapped awake. "What?"

When he lifted his head from the pillow, he was dismayed to notice that she was wearing her sweater again. He thought he glimpsed a flash of black underwear too. Her hair was down. She was leaning over him part-dressed. Was she getting ready to leave? His dread returned.

"You have a fucking swastika on your shoulder."

She gawped at him, appalled.

He spotted that her bra was still on the floor where he had tossed it. She wouldn't leave that behind. She wasn't going anywhere right now. He let out the breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding.

"Ah, yeah. Told you I had ink."

She shook her head incredulous, yanking down the sheet he had pulled over them once the sweat had evaporated and a chill had set in.

He wasn't wrong. He was littered with marks, crude diagrams, smudged obscenities. Added to the various scars that criss-crossed his body he might have been some old school sailor fucked up by a pirate's cutlass.

"Jesus..."

"Turn off, huh? I'm sorry, want me to put a shirt on?", he smiled apologetically and started to get up to find his clothes.

"Hey, no. No. It's okay. It's just...a surprise, is all.", she frowned, feeling bad for making him self conscious.

"It's not like I picked them out at the tattoo parlor. I didn't do this to myself. It was done to me."

She could tell it pained him from the grit in his voice. She ran her hand over his back, imagining with horror how it must have happened, how many guys it took to hold him down while they scratched at his skin. She felt a mass accumulating in her throat and it took her by surprise. Dani had the reputation of being a tough cookie but some stuff just got to her; cases with kids like Jeannie Harris and now, apparently, this. She knew about his past and through her work she had a better idea than most people of how tough it must have been. But to see the evidence of it on him, the violence actually etched into his body, the seams on his skin where his bones had actually snapped and burst out; well, it very nearly made her cry. She swallowed it down before it had a chance to bloom. She wondered how much he fought before he was overwhelmed, whether he yelled for the guards. Whether they ignored him. How those people slept at night.

He looked down at a shitty little silhouette of a bird on his shoulder and winced.

"It's okay...I got myself tested, I was lucky, I didn't catch anything that I could pass on to you...", he added quickly.

That aspect hadn't even occurred to her. But he was right, he had been lucky.

'PIG CUNT FAG' emblazoned on a badly-drawn LAPD badge to the right of his spine. He wouldn't have let them do that lightly, which is where the scars came from, she guessed.

"So why keep them? They can remove tattoos these days, fade them at least. Laser treatments. Or get something less...I don't know..._thuggish..._over the top?"

"Can I get your name tattooed on me?", he grinned.

"As much as I'd rather die, that might actually be preferable to knowing that you're walking around like that."

Charlie's eyes lit up like she was giving him the green light.

"Don't you fucking dare, Crews.", she swatted him. "But seriously, you should get them removed. The swastika, especially."

He was quiet for a second; she thought he was considering what she was saying but really he was thinking about the fact she had called him 'Crews' at least twice since he woke up.

"You know that the swastika was a Buddhist symbol long before the Nazis got hold of it, right? It occurs in a lot of ancient faiths, actually; it hasn't always been about hate."

"Oh yeah? So it's a Buddhist thing? The other inmates at Pelican Bay were big on Zen too, huh? Looks that way, especially when you take the pentagram and the spiderwebs into account."

"Are you asking me to get rid of them?", he wondered hopefully aloud if her objection to his ugly tattoos was part of a bigger thing, part of her claiming his body for herself maybe. In which case he would get them removed immediately.

"No. I'm questioning why you didn't already get them removed. Why you allowed what they did to you to stick?"

"Because whether they are there on my back or not, they still did it, it still happened. Getting them removed won't change that. And every time I see them, or someone else sees them and is horrified, then I can use that feeling to make sure no one ever does anything like that to me, or anyone I care about, ever again."

His face was granite. It wasn't the first time he had explained that, she wasn't the first to ask. It kind of made sense to her but she wished he would have more respect for himself. She wished he would _take care_. She was consumed by concern for him all of a sudden.

"Did it hurt?"

"The tattoos? No, not really. Mostly I was already out cold when they happened."

She had been waiting for what felt like an eternity to ask him questions like this, for him to answer her honestly, but she realized that no matter what she asked him, she could probably never grasp what it had been like. He was so matter-of-fact about something so brutal.

He rolled onto his side and lifted an arm, exposing a series of small blue vertical lines in groups, one group crossed by a diagonal line.

"A tally?", she asked.

"Yeah. Seven lines. Seven times that a guy named Hayes and his friends knocked me unconscious during a fight. He'd celebrate by giving me another tattoo each time and use the tally to keep score. It was like a game."

"Sick fuck.", grimaced Dani.

"Not really. There were guys a whole lot sicker than him around. They'd do worse to you if you passed out in their company. This almost qualifies as prison humor."

"Hilarious.", she said. "Well, his artwork sucks."

"Some of these scars are his work too."

Dani traced the raised lines on his skin, starting with the biggest one which looped from his back, over his ribcage and finished up on his front.

"What happened here?" She noticed gooseflesh spring up where she had touched him.

"Ted."

"Ted did this?!", she spat.

"Of course not. Hayes and his assholes had started to pick on Ted. It wasn't a fair fight, so I got involved. One of them had a blade."

"And you got this for your trouble?"

"It was nearly number eight on the tally. I landed up in the hospital for a few weeks, broken ribs, internal bleeding from the beating and then the gaping hole in my side, then a stretch in solitary. But when I came out, Ted was still there and nobody bothered him any longer."

"So it was worth it?"

"Sure. Ted didn't belong in there. All he did was to delete numbers on a spreadsheet."

"It's called fraud. Grand theft. He broke the law. It's more than you ever did to wind up in there." She wasn't convinced.

"He didn't kill anyone. He didn't rape, he didn't run drugs, traffic people or abuse kids. He had never been in a fist fight in his life. White collar guy like that in there was as good as dead the second he arrived. The death penalty for fraud? That's not right, Dani. We wound up cellmates. He saved my sanity."

"That's questionable.", Dani joked but saw that Charlie wasn't laughing. "And Hayes stayed away?"

"Hayes now walks with sticks and calipers. He has a big number eight right here." Charlie pointed to his forehead.

"You did not..."

Charlie raised his eyebrows and she knew that he did.

"The game was abandoned at seven points to one. I lost but I also won."

"Jesus."

"You're right that I belonged in that place about as much as Ted did when I arrived. Difference is, I grew into it."

This was one of the things he would have been ashamed to tell his grandma. His face went hard and she knew that there was other bad stuff locked inside.

Charlie thought about the guard he killed, considered telling her everything right there and then; how a group of the bastards would regularly beat the shit out of him in the dead of night, how they locked him in the industrial refrigerator in the kitchens just out of range of the cameras, how they spat on him as he lay on the ground coughing up his kidney. How he snapped the neck of the ringleader once he got complacent enough to pick on Charlie when he was alone, without his pals and his fucking cattle prod. He remembered propping the guy's body up against a prison-catering-sized barrel of peaches once he realized he was dead. Like sitting him up like that would somehow have made it less barbaric. He wondered if she would understand if he told her that he felt absolutely no remorse. He decided he couldn't lay that on her, not yet, maybe not ever.

Her fingers on his stomach hauled him back to the now.

She pointed out some of his larger marks, mostly out of curiosity and to take advantage of his honesty while he was willing to talk rather than cover it all up with Zen and wisecracks. Also it was an excuse to run her hands over his body in a context other than them having sex. She liked how intimate it felt, even if the subject matter was grim. He obviously liked it too, she had him singing like a bird. He was full of stories. She learned that he had suffered a fractured skull. She learned all about terrifying improvised prison weapons. She learned which of his bones had been broken at the hands of the prison guards. She learned just what kind of an environment this man, who had been so gentle with her, had come from.

"And this one?", she rubbed her finger over stubble and a thin white line just under his chin that she had only just noticed today.

"Mac and cheese.", he replied.

"You fought someone over macaroni and cheese?"

"Mac and cheese in prison is a serious business, Dani. Second only to enchiladas, but we only got those on cinco de mayo."

"Someone stole your mac and cheese?" She knew Charlie liked to eat.

"No._ I _stole a guy's mac and cheese."

"You did? Why the fuck would you do that, Crews?", she frowned.

"It was one of Hayes' guys, like his bodyguard or something. The biggest one. I needed him out of the way so that I could even up that tally. So I started a fight in the dinner line in front of everyone, all the guards. He hit me with my own tray. It bled so much they thought he'd killed me. He got a spell in solitary for it."

"And while he was gone, you dealt with Hayes?", she finished his story with half a question, half a statement.

"Uh huh.", he confirmed.

"Jesus. You _are _a thug."

"Pretty much. Do you still like me?"

"Who said that I liked you?"

He grinned at her and didn't answer.


	46. Chapter 46

"No more prison talk.", he said decisively, like they had better things to be doing.

He pulled her across the bed towards him and she let herself be pulled. The blue of his eyes looked pregnant with a question once she got up close. She started to feel nervous that he was going to say something significant. She didn't know if that was good-nervous or bad-nervous. She still didn't know if she could trust herself to react the way she truly wanted. She didn't know how to deal with any of this. She was scared and she was a fuck-up and it would have been easier just to go home.

He allowed his fingers to linger in her sweater, loving how it was slightly too big and fell down onto her thighs, covering just enough but not too much. The fibers were so soft against his skin it was like she was wearing a cloud. Sexily dishevelled, wrapped in a cloud of their pheromones, her hair now loose waves framing her face...better than his wildest dreams. He pinched himself to make sure it was all really happening in case he found she was a mirage when he went in for a kiss. His mind had played vivid tricks on him before; he had once hallucinated an entire orchestra whilst in solitary. He had learned always to check first to avoid disappointment. But she was there alright. Her lips were real. He hadn't really meant to start anything, he just didn't want to dwell on the prison thing, but it was rapidly heading that way. She was so hot and sweet and eager and he felt the whole bed crackle static when her tongue glanced his lip.

She hadn't meant to start anything either, he was sat upright against the pillows, her fingers brushed him lightly on his bare chest when she leaned in to kiss him, she registered that the sheets were crumpled dangerously low around his waist and from then on it was irresistible. A small kiss became a bigger kiss, which became two kisses, which became a sumptuous clinch. She found she couldn't help but wind her arms around him again, folding herself around him, drawing him in. Before she knew it, they were entwined in bed linen and each other, stealing one another's breath. This was _something else _alright.

He broke their embrace and finally got his question out.

"Will you stay here with me tonight?"

She knew it. Dani noted that it was a question, but there was more than a hint that he totally expected her to say yes. She felt uneasy.

"I don't know about that, Crews..."

"Why not? We could go out, take a walk, go get dinner. Or stay here?", he said with a smirk, "I'd have no problem with staying right here."

She was vaguely pissed that he wasn't taking her seriously when she expressed her reservations, maybe he thought she just needed convincing. His invitation to stay contained all those things that couples did; she didn't know if she was ready for any of that. She didn't have a change of clothes. She didn't have a toothbrush. She had laundry to do back at home. She was coming up with trivial reasons why she shouldn't out of sheer panic. _Fuck's sake, Dani_. She started to withdraw from him immediately, her hands let go of his neck, her arms went slack around him.

"I guess I need some time to think.", she replied.

_Here we go_. He braced himself for the suckerpunch.

"What's to think about, Dani? It all seems pretty simple to me."

He touched her thigh, which was resting comfortably on top of his above the sheets, to emphasize to her just how simple it was.

"Yeah, it is simple...right here, in this room. But don't you think this is quite surreal? It's not always going to be like this. As soon as we step out of here it's gonna be...I don't know..."

"Who's to say that what happens in here isn't real and what happens out there isn't fake?", he asked.

She ignored his mystic bullshit.

"Like you said, you and me, after all this time? It_ is_ pretty weird." He had already admitted as much and he needed reminding.

"I said that earlier today. That was before we..."

"Before we, what?", she wanted to see how he would refer to what they just did, what he thought this whole thing was.

"Before we got busy. For real.", he finished.

"_'Got busy'?!'_ Jesus, Crews. I know you have your reasons but sometimes the shit you say is _so_...early 1990s...You sound like my mom trying to be hip."

"What can I do?", he shrugged, "They arrested my development. Literally".

He was glad they could still joke during what was a pretty heavy conversation. One that was definitely not going his way. He had to goof around or else he would get mad.

He was right, she thought. For a guy nearly forty, he really did act like an immature twenty-something. She wondered if he was trying to claim back lost time, or whether his development into a rational adult person really had been interrupted and stalled by his incarceration. She wondered if he would ever catch up. Maybe he would always be too young for her.

"So you _do_ feel weird?", he looked into her eyes, concerned.

"A little, yes.", she replied. "And if it feels a little weird in here, just the two of us, then it's gonna feel a lot worse when we're back at work, Crews."

He couldn't help it, he_ was _getting mad.

"It sounds like you've already decided. How come you're calling me 'Crews' again, Dani? I thought we fixed that?", he challenged.

"Because you're my partner and that's what I've always called you."

"Really? Well back there, just a little while ago, you were all _'Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!_'. What's up with that?"

_Shit_. The second he said it he regretted it, he knew she would flip. It sounded too much like he was mocking her, like he was throwing the hard-won intimacy that he had so prized right back in her face. He knew unconsciously that this was something you should never do with Dani Reese.

Sure enough, Dani whipped herself up and away from him, snapped herself backwards half way across the bed before he could even blink.

She was going to get the fuck out of there. Like she always did.


	47. Chapter 47

Charlie dived forward and caught hold of her wrist before she could escape.

Crucially for him, he didn't tighten his grip too fast or pull her to keep her from retreating. Another unconscious action; he had learned how to deal with her without even knowing it. This made all the difference because the contact with his hand made her pause to think about whether flouncing out was what she really wanted to do here. She was the spooked pony and he was the horse whisperer.

He sighed. "Help me out here because if you don't I'm going to fuck things up again.", he looked at her, eyes pleading, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that how it sounded. I just want you to stay with me, Dani."

She very rarely heard him curse. To the extent that when he did, it really carried some weight. His obvious sincerity, and whether she realized it or not, the way he hadn't tried to dominate her physically, made her soften. She got another pang for him, like the one she had when she saw his scribbled back. She took a breath and examined her feelings; she knew he didn't mean to offend her, she didn't really want to storm out on him, so why was she doing it? Habit? Self-defense? Lashing out each because she felt vulnerable? An excuse to retreat? She knew she was a pain in the ass.

She relaxed a little and sat on her knees on the bed, facing him. To his relief, he saw her calm down, like a balloon losing its gas, and he knew when it was safe to let go of her wrist.

"And if I stay, _I'll_...screw things up." She hadn't liked hearing him curse and so she used deliberately softer language in response. "I've been here before. Work stuff...it ends badly. Even if you feel it. When you lose, you lose big. Believe me, I know."

"Tidwell?", Charlie asked. He wasn't aware that it had been all that messy.

"Yeah...no... Not Tidwell. Not _just_ Tidwell.", she conceded.

"Carlos in Vice?", guessed Charlie.

"Hell no! That guy is _not_ the catch he likes to think he is."

"Huh. I thought all women liked Carlos. So, if not him...then who?"

Dani looked sheepish. "Oh, there have been a few over the years."

"A few?"

"I drink, Crews. I make bad choices.", she shrugged in explanation.

Little wonder people assumed that he and Dani shared more than just a car. Charlie knew he had a bit of a reputation himself.

Dani sighed. She was regretting starting this whole thing. He had this ability to tie a conversation in knots and send her off on tangents. She wished they could just go back to making out.

"Benny.", she said quietly.

"Benny?", he repeated after her. He didn't know any Benny.

She sighed again. She knew she would have to go through with it and tell him the whole damn story now. Crews had his eager listening face on, was propped up on one elbow resting his head on his hand.

"Benny was my first partner."

"Benny was your Bobby?", he tried to make her smile.

"Yeah, but think less facial hair and less gut than Stark."

"So you got involved with him and it didn't work out, huh?", Charlie guessed.

She nodded. "Except it was a little more complicated than that."

Again with the listening face.

Dani looked down at the bed and took a deep breath.

"Benny was a friend of my dad's on the force, a few years his junior. I remember him coming round to the house when I was growing up. Just another cop friend of my dad's. But everybody loved Benny, he was just that kind of guy.", she narrowed her eyes like she was actually looking back through time at the whole thing playing out.

Charlie didn't dare interrupt.

"One time though, and this was when I was still in school, he got shot up real bad on a call to a liquor store. Everyone thought he was gone. He was a real mess, hooked up to all kinds of machines...they called a priest twice. It was touch and go there for a while but eventually he pulled through, although they said there was no chance he would ever walk again. My dad and his pals kept vigil at the hospital the whole time, they took care of his wife...you know, the way that you do? I remember that my mom was scared that my dad would go the same way. She wanted him to retire already. You should have heard her go crazy when I finished school and told her I was planning on serving too...", she smiled at the memory of her mom yelling and wringing her hands in their kitchen. "My dad told her not to worry 'cause I'd never make it through the training in any case."

Her smiled dropped at the mention of her father.

"Anyway, Benny was made of tough stuff and he made it. It took him years but he made it. Not just back to a desk shuffling paper either, he waited until he was well enough to pass fitness, to start over back on patrol. Nobody had ever seen anything like it."

"Quite a guy.", said Crews.

He was amazed that she was talking to him like this. She stared at the same spot on the bed the whole time she was explaining. He wanted to touch her in support but he was scared that he might break the trance she was in, make her clam up and go back to one-liners and withering looks.

"He was.", she said fondly. "But you can imagine how pissed I was a few years later when they partnered me with him as a rookie. _The rookie and the lame duck_. All that hard work and training at the Academy, just to be babysat by my dad's pal at the end of it? My whole cohort called it for what it was; special treatment for Reese Junior. It was fucking embarrassing, Crews. I went nuts, tried to switch around but my dad was already a big shot Detective by then. He was pretty influential."

"Oh yeah, I know he was...", Charlie knew all about Jack Reese alright.

"At first I gave Benny a real hard time."

Charlie smiled like he knew how _that_ was.

"No, a _really_ hard time. I fucked up...a lot...but he was real patient. I had this attitude, that he was going nowhere, just serving out his days, wasting my time... I was a brat, I guess. But I was wrong. He was good police. I learned a lot with him...from him. We were tight. Things got a little..._intense_."

She slowed over the word 'intense' and shot him a pointed look which meant that that was also the word she would use to describe _their_ recent relationship.

"And?", he glossed over that, wanting her to continue.

"I don't need to tell you. You already know how it goes. It was a fucking cliché. He was twenty years older than me. He was married. He had kids."

"Did you love him?" Charlie tried not to feel jealous of this Benny guy.

Dani baulked at Charlie asking her who she loved. It was weird to talk about it with him.

"I was pretty young. But...yeah.", she admitted.

She had loved him. Despite her dad's best efforts to label it as something dirty and shameful Benny was the first man she ever loved.

"So what happened?"

"He was gonna leave his wife, come live with me in the same shitty apartment I have now. We would declare it at work, take whatever shit was coming to us. Deal with my father. Together. Everything was going to be fine."

"That's not how it went down?"

"Not with Jack Reese around. We were all set. Benny told his wife, started to pack his stuff. Then, from what I could gather, my dad paid him a visit. Fixed things again, threatened him, I guess."

"Huh." Sounded about right to Charlie.

"After everything we said. He folded so easily. He called me, said he couldn't go through with it, he loved his kids. His wife was going to take him back. He suddenly took the early retirement package that he had been refusing all those years while he was trying to get back on patrol. Like it all meant nothing. And then he was gone. They moved away. I lost him completely."

"And what happened at work?"

"What do you think? I was a pariah. Everyone was real fond of Benny's wife and kids because of the shooting, the way she stuck by him throughout his rehabilitation. I was the younger woman with no respect, the tramp who seduced him and nearly ruined his life. My dad made sure that was how it went, told people how ashamed he was of his slut daughter."

"Wow."

Crews was beginning to understand why things were shaky between Dani and her father, aside from the obvious, that was. He now also understood how Dani came to be an outsider on the force; she had always given the impression that this was how she wanted things, but maybe its origins went way back to Benny.

"Did any brass get to hear about it?"

"Oh sure, but nothing happened there. My dad fixed it again. Let me float around for a couple of years or so going nowhere with no new partner assigned, relief cover, that kind of thing. Like your pal Seever."

Charlie ignored her, he knew Dani couldn't resist a dig at Seever.

"But you've done okay, despite all that?"

"Had to. My dad thought that if they left me out in the cold long enough, then I'd just leave, get a job in Security maybe. My mom would be happier and his embarrassment of a daughter would no longer be around to foul up the family name. But I proved him wrong, people started to forget."

"That's my girl.", smiled Charlie, noting the similarities between them. They had both clawed their respective paths to where they were now.

"I had to work twice as hard as anyone else for it but I did it. My dad could see that I wasn't gonna quit and I was getting somewhere, but then I got the undercover assignment. At the time I didn't see that I had anything to lose in taking it. Looking back, I wouldn't be surprised if he was behind that too, sending me out there, maybe trying to bury me, drown me out."

Charlie had heard a little about her undercover work from people when he was first assigned Reese as his partner. She had orders to infiltrate the distribution arm of a drug cartel and some bad shit went down, as he recalled. She came back a junkie. There was a guy involved in that, too, he remembered.

"Is that when you started to drink?", he asked.

"Oh, no. I always was a drinker. The drugs started then though. I fucked up...again."

He wanted to hear more, he wanted to hear it all, but he sensed she was starting to brood.

"Sounds to me like you were set up to fail.", he looked at her hard, "But you didn't. You're gonna make Leiutenant sometime soon".

"Yeah. By screwing the boss.", she said ruefully.

"Nobody thinks that. Nobody even knows, right?"

"Tidwell does."

"He said that?", Charlie started to get indignant on her behalf.

"No, but I'll bet that he thinks that. That I used him. Maybe he'd be right."

Dani knew she hadn't used her relationship with Tidwell to get ahead at work. She had used him to hide from what was really going on with her though, to keep Charlie at bay. Explaining that part to Charlie would be a disclosure too far. Even when she was being honest, she couldn't be completely honest.

"_You'll_ sit the tests. Not Tidwell. _You'll_ pass.", he reminded her.

"Yeah but he endorsed my application to the development program. He pushed for it. Would he have done that if we weren't sleeping together?"

Now Charlie found himself suppressing a wave of bitter feeling towards Tidwell._ Not Zen, Charlie. _

"If he only did it because you two were together then he's the one who needs to take a look at himself, not you, Dani."

Everything she was telling him dripped with self-loathing. He hated it.

"The thing with Benny? It's not the same as me and you. I'm not married, I don't have kids. And I'm not afraid of your father. Wherever he is.", Charlie argued. Nothing she had told him put him off.

"But you're my partner. A really fucking good one, Crews. If I lose, I lose big."

"You won't lose. And even if you did, I wouldn't go anywhere. I have nowhere else_ to_ go.", he reached out and enlaced his fingers with hers. She didn't pull away.

"So you'd lose big too. And it would be like history repeating, that's what everyone would say."

"They wouldn't have an opinion because they wouldn't know."

"Oh yeah? You think you'd be able to keep it to yourself? Calling me 'Dani' all of a sudden after three years? Doing that overprotective thing you do?.", she looked down and gestured to him holding her hand, "Touching me?"

"I have amazing self control.", he corrected her.

"And I have none. I'm an alcoholic. Do you know what that means? I destroy relationships."

"Well, we're doing okay so far. Three years and you haven't shot me yet.", he tried levity.

"Oh, but I've wanted to.", she vowed.

"See? So you must have some self control after all.", he grinned.

She smiled back at him, kind of reluctantly.

"Anyway, it's too late now. It happened. We can't go back, even if you want to."

"I don't want to.", she said quietly, half-surprising herself that she had actually said it out loud.

This was music to Charlie's ears and he felt his heart swell.

They were both quiet for a moment while that sunk in. They both felt a little shy, even. They were really going to do this.

"You know, we could always take work out of the equation. I could leave.", he suggested.

"I would never ask you to do that. It's not my stupid career I care about..."

"You're not asking, I'm offering. I don't need it. Time was that I did, when I first got out but now...not so much."

He wasn't thinking so much of the job, rather his need to be on the inside in order to piece together the conspiracy against him. It all mattered to him less now. Only Dani really mattered.

He looked serious. Dani would never entertain it for a second but the fact that he offered meant a lot.

"And what would you do? Like you said, you have nowhere else to go."

Charlie tried to think of what he could do if he were no longer on the LAPD payroll. He struggled to come up with an immediate answer.

"What would_ I _do without you there, for that matter?"

"You could ride with Seever.", he smirked, a call-back to their conversation earlier when Dani had threatened to break up their partnership.

She looked at him, incredulously. "Oh yeah, and listen to her five-year plan all day? Please, I'd rather listen to yours..."

"You would?"

"What? You actually have a five-year plan?"

"Sure. Do you know where mangos grow?"

"Ugh.", she covered her face with her hand. "Why does everything come back to fruit with you?"

Charlie decided he better save the mango grove conversation for a little way down the line.

"So will you stay tonight?", his fingers stroked hers and he gave her that look.

"Nope, I told you."

His shoulders sank and he let out a long, frustrated breath. She was the most stubborn person he had ever known.

"But I will stay for a turn in your fancy shower", she scooted off the bed and sauntered away to the bathroom, his eyes tracking her legs all the way.

Charlie flopped onto his back, exhaled, and stared up at the fan.


	48. Chapter 48

Dani hopped gleefully into the cavernous shower, imagining it was her own personal waterfall. It was amazing. If Crews did move here, she would visit him daily just to freshen up. It wouldn't be the only thing she would visit him for, but it would be an added bonus. She bit her lip to suppress a huge grin, thinking about how today had turned out.

As soon as she started the water running, she sensed a familiar presence lurking just inside the bathroom door.

"Um, do you need any help in there?", Charlie called tentatively.

"Nope.", she yelled.

"Are you sure?", he insisted, "You don't need me to pass you a towel or scrub your back or something? Or I could sing to you? People sing in the shower, right?"

She dialled down the water so that she could be heard clearly. "Thanks but I'm good, Crews. No singing necessary. I'm just gonna...you know..._shower_."

"Oh...Okay.", he sounded awfully disappointed. But to his credit he took 'no' for an answer and she heard him pad away.

She smiled to herself. It wasn't a bad idea, there certainly was enough room for the two of them in there. She started to imagine him towering over her dripping wet, her rubbing suds over his chest, holding him close under the jets...and she very nearly called him back. But he would keep. Right now she just wanted to enjoy the water and to regroup a little. It had been a crazy twenty-four hours.

She had told him about Benny. It had been so long since she even said his name. Typical Crews, he passed no judgment. He didn't dismiss her relationship with Benny as just a fling or a dirty affair. He just listened, heard her out. She loved him for that. Of course, Benny himself barely mattered to her any longer; she was older and far wiser and in hindsight she knew that it had been crazy. The two of them would never have lasted long living together in her apartment, working together day in, day out. But that wasn't the point. It had mattered to her at the time; her feelings had been real. Her heart got broken; she wound up feeling like she had lost everything and she faced the aftermath alone because the one person she always relied on was gone. She didn't want that for her and Crews.

She let the water cascade over her face, trying in vain to keep her hair dry.

She was glad she told him. It might go some way to helping him understand why she felt so awkward. The fear of the same thing happening very nearly outweighed the urge to act on her feelings. And they hadn't even really talked feelings yet. If they were going to have a chance at all she was going to need to be honest. With trepidation, she counted up all the other things she was going to need to tell him about herself; her selfish streak, the destructive, shitty things she had done through booze, the one-night-stands. How she came to be partnered with Crews in the first place through having embraced her undercover lifestyle all too readily. How her nose had bled from shovelling so much shit up there, at first because she wanted her cover to seem authentic but soon because she couldn't do without it. Meeting Michael, a rose in the cesspool. Him wanting to get out of there and her making him stay, perhaps because she was committed to gathering evidence but maybe just because she was dreading getting clean. She had been too self-absorbed, too swaddled in substances to hear how desperate he was. His death was on her. She wondered if Crews would still be as non-judgmental once he knew all of that.

She squeezed hard on the bottle of shower gel, dumping the contents over her chest and tried to scrub it all away so there would be nothing there _to_ tell.


	49. Chapter 49

Charlie paced the room waiting for Dani as if she had gone to the end of the earth without him instead of to the bathroom just a few feet away. He was a little dejected that she wouldn't let him in there to 'sing' to her. Actually, if he was honest, he felt more like a caged animal who had been taunted with a juicy steak. But that definitely was not Zen. He reminded himself that he had control of his desires. It was clear that all this was going to happen on her terms or not at all. He thought about it for a second and decided that the payoff was so good that he had absolutely no problem with that.

So did the fact that she had been in his bed and was now in his shower mean that they were now together? He had wondered this plenty before; at what point 'togetherness' started. Mainly whenever she displayed girlfriend-like behaviors. When she bought him fruit without him having to ask her. When she finished his sentences for him or spoke his mind without him having to move his lips. When she got pissed at his touching other women. When she gave him a hickey on his shoulder.

They were definitely more together now than they had ever been, so was that enough? Did he need to say something? Even if nobody was to know but them? He understood that this was all new and a little weird but he was optimistic that they could work it out. They had to; they were One. It would just take a little time. He could be patient. But he really wanted her to stay the night. He wanted to wake up with her tomorrow morning. He wanted them to be together. Truly. Officially, secretly, or whatever she wanted. Dammit, he wanted her to let him into that shower.

When she emerged some time later, stepping out of a cloud of steam into the bedroom, he was initially a little disappointed. Dani Reese wet from the shower and wrapped in a towel, or a bathrobe at least, was something he had long imagined. She had already dried off and had thrown on her sweater once again. He watched her come close to him, taking in her ankles, her calves, her thighs. He resolved that she didn't need the props of his imagination, she looked plenty hot just as she was.

"What?", she asked, noticing him gawping at her.

She knew 'what', alright.

"Nothing. Good shower?"

"The best. Worth the room rate alone, I'd say."

He saw her looking around to locate the rest of her clothes.

"Hey, I'm just going to jump in there too. Don't go anywhere, okay? In fact, feel free to come on in and sing to me." He tugged lightly at the arm of her sweater. "I get lonely in the shower and _I _don't mind sharing..."

She laughed at him and resisted. "I'm a horrible singer."

He needed to find a way to keep her from leaving.

"Okay, so do me a favor. Order us some food?" He tossed her the room service menu.

"Sure. What do you want to eat?"

"Uh, I don't know...pick for me?", he asked. "I'm really hungry though, so make it calorific.", he warned, turned on his heel and disappeared into the bathroom.

"What am I, your wife?", Dani muttered to herself, scrutinizing the list of dishes.

When he emerged ten minutes later, he thought she was gone. It would have been like her just to make the point. But he sighed relief when he found her, standing at the far wall of the terraza looking out at the beach. He watched her for a second, wondering if the fact that she had stayed marked the beginning of 'together'.

He approached her quietly but she seemed to register that he was there even above the breaking waves. He stopped just behind her and was delighted and astounded to feel her tentatively leaning back into him. He knew better than to make any comment.

Charlie shuffled forward very slowly until they were at first standing closer together, and then leaning on each other, her back against his chest. They both stared at the spot that the ocean met the sky in silence. He reached out and gripped the chrome rail that sat on top of the glass wall so that his arms were either side of her. He watched in wonder as she took his hands from the rail and wrapped his arms around her instead. He felt his heart liquify and drip into his rib cage like it was candle wax.

Nobody spoke but as ever, Charlie's inner monologue chattered overtime._Is this a hug? Are we hugging? This is definitely a hug. _

Charlie was elated, more that she had instigated it than the fact it was happening at all. Almost more than the fact that they had slept together. If he wasn't mistaken, this felt a lot like a casual, spontaneous display of affection. _Gold dust._ It wasn't really all that cold out there but the wind swept off the ocean, buffeting them, and they both tacitly used this as an excuse to hold on tighter. He wished they didn't need an excuse but he was being patient, he reminded himself. Charlie angled his torso to envelope her, stooping slightly so that Dani could burrow into the hollow he created. She fit perfectly and crossed her arms over his to keep him wrapped around her.

Dani liked having him draped over her. If she had been that kind of girl, which she told herself she totally wasn't, she would have called it romantic.

"What are you thinking about?", he said, finally.

"Oh...just how long it's been since I was at the beach.", she lied.

She had really been thinking about the fact that she was in love with Charlie Crews.

"Why? What were you thinking about?"

"Um, I was thinking about food. Did you order before?."

He was lying too, kind of. He had been thinking about his stomach but only to distract himself from wondering if Dani was wearing any underwear beneath her sweater.

"I got you a club sandwich. Except it wasn't called a straight-up club sandwich because that wouldn't have been complicated or fancy enough for this place. Oh, and it has avocado too. I thought you'd like that."

"I do like that. What did you get?"

"A salad."

"Did you get me fries?"

"Uh-huh."

"A large order of fries?"

"Yes.", she smiled.

They both knew that she would eat her salad _and_ half his fries. Just like she ways did. Just like a real girlfriend would. That's why he always ordered large. Just like they had always been together.

The thought of food made his stomach growl. So he switched back to thinking about sex instead.

"You smell good.", he sniffed at her, allowing his gaze to sweep down her neck hungrily.

"Well I ought to. Papaya, pepino and green tea shower gel..."

"Did you know that papay-..."

He had been about to tell her about the aphrodisiac properties of papaya, which may or may not have been true. It sure felt true from where he was standing. But she cut him off.

"Hey. This is nice, Crews, don't ruin the moment with fruit facts.", she warned him.

_She admitted they were having a moment_.

He smiled and stuck his face through her hair into the curve of her neck and gave her an exaggerated kiss. When she didn't flinch, or voice any objection, he struck again but this time with more feeling. He could already taste sea salt on her skin.

Where things had felt pretty romantic, the mood suddenly dropped and slowed and it became all about sex again. She pulled at his arms and encouraged him to squeeze her tighter from behind, bending her neck to his hot mouth. He felt her grind into him and blinked back lust. She covered his hands with her own and trailed them down slowly from her waist until she was able to direct his palms' journey over her bare legs, teasing him with what she let him touch and how fast she allowed him to move.

Charlie couldn't even hear the waves any longer. When he finally inched his fingers higher, just as he suspected, there was nothing going on under that sweater but silken skin that smelled of papaya, pepino and green tea. He wondered if she would taste that way too. He pushed forward, pressing her up against the glass barrier and she let out a gasp as she felt him move one hand to her navel while the other slid round to her ass.

"Crews...", she chastized.

"What? You can't walk around here like that and expect me not to want to..."

True. She had deliberately chosen not to put her jeans back on after her shower, knowing that she would provoke a certain reaction.

She let him continue for a few heavy seconds, closing her eyes and gnawing her lip.

"Can anyone see us out here?", she asked.

"Not unless they have a big yacht and an even bigger telescope.", he muttered, not caring either way.

She swivelled round until she was facing him.

"Maybe we should go inside...", she suggested, hoping he would kiss her.

"Oh yeah?", he looked down his nose at her lips, silently willing her to kiss him.

The door chimed the arrival of his sandwich and while his stomach sighed relief, he saw the flash of frustration in Dani's eyes at the interruption.

Charlie smiled and let go of his partner; realizing that he had just discovered a way to make her stay.


	50. Chapter 50

She didn't stay the night. He woke up all alone on that plush hotel sofa a little while before the clock struck dawn, celestial light flushing the room and the sleep from his limbs.

He had been naive, no, _stupid_, to think he could persuade or even manipulate that woman into doing anything she wasn't minded to. She would only ever play along with his games up to a certain point. She drove him nuts.

He grinned.

They had eaten and hung out and given each other sidelong glances into the evening. It was nice but frustrating. He didn't touch her, wanting to hold out as long as possible, okay, _to tease her_, as far as possible, but he wasn't playing hard to get, he lavished attention on her in every non verbal way he could. She must have been able to feel it like the belting waves of heat that bounce off the melting streets in high summer. He didn't care if she knew it. Every cell in his body was devoted to her and this thing they were doing, the thing that he hoped was called '_together_'. As the sky began to bruise lilac he relaxed a little, thinking he had won, that she had resolved to take pity on him and just stay the goddamn night. He leaned back and watched her wrinkle her nose and roll her eyes as she talked and thought about how different she was to Jennifer. Good different.

When conversation slowed it wasn't because they ran out of things to say. They had plenty to say but they were both thinking about how they could get a little closer in order to say it. Charlie took the hit because he sensed that Dani was still too proud. He grabbed the blanket from where it had been artfully draped on the edge of the sofa and invited her outside into the gathering darkness in order to listen to the ocean. '_Listening to the ocean_' turned out to be a euphemism for the same thing he had termed '_singing in the shower' _earlier that day, but she went for it willingly this time. For all his determination that Dani should understand just how much he cared, that this wasn't something that would burn white hot then burn away, his appetite for her won out this time and he happily let her go on back to simply rocking his world. They sat on the sun lounger, craning their necks searching for the first stars and while he was transfixed and the weight of expectation was suspended, she pounced and kissed him dizzy. She blistered and writhed in his lap while he gathered the blanket about her, dolphins and seaweed weaved into plaid, just as much to keep her warm than to have something earthly to cling on to. He prayed that those private terrazas really were private. Just as the their sun lounger began to lurch and scrape on the tile like it had come to life, Charlie grit his teeth against her neck and growled while Dani smothered a yelp against the side of his head, still bashful enough to not want to let her pleasure show. Then they sat motionless for so long that Charlie lost track of time like he would sometimes when he meditated. He came to when she slackened her grip on him slightly, her nails slipping out of the new scarlet grooves they had cut in his back. It only hurt him when she let go. Nobody spoke. He wondered what she was thinking, if the silence was her coming to terms with _together_. For his part, he was quiet because he was trying with all his strength to swallow down three little words that had risen in a bubble from somewhere deep in his stomach. The bubble was gathering speed and pressure, trying to squeeze through his larynx and out into the night, where it would almost certainly turn everything to shit. Charlie kept his mouth shut and visualized that bubble bursting, the three words melting back into his chest.

As amazing as it had been, and even though they had retired back to the sofa inside where it was warmer and where she let him hold her, he had still woken alone. She snuck out. He wondered if it had been payback for him leaving her the same way the night before. Maybe a little, maybe in part. He settled on 30 percent payback, 70 percent stubbornness.

He trained his eyes on the coffee table. Hotel notepaper with his half-eaten apple acting as a paperweight.

'_You smile in your sleep._ _Call me. Dx_'

He grinned.


	51. Chapter 51

"Motherfuh...agh.", Dani croaked.

Instinctively she threw one hand over her eyes, if the light hit her pupils at this hour she would surely turn to dust, and fumbled blindly for the phone on her nightstand with the other.

She knew it was him, she would have known it even if she hadn't set a specific ringtone to herald her partner's calls. She had left him that note telling him to call her after all; she might have known that he would do so obscenely early.

He probably wanted to know why she had left him in that palatial hotel suite to come sleep in her tiny apartment all alone. Truth was, she didn't know what to tell him because she didn't really know herself.

She had a great time. Being with him, really talking to him for once about stuff that mattered without him waxing Zen and tying her up in fruit and double negatives and rhetorical questions. Getting stuff about Benny and her dad out into the open, hearing him speak so honestly about the things that had happened to him. The sex...

She had said she wasn't staying over and she had meant it. At the time. Once they had come back inside to take refuge from the wind and he wound his limbs around her it felt kind of late and she felt kind of comfortable. It was so rare for her to feel comfortable. But all the reasons she had cited about why she wouldn't stay over still applied. Staying over or not wasn't the point. Doing what she said she was going to do and not being worn down by some guy, no matter who he was, was the point.

Some would call it petulance; Dani just called it starting as she meant to go on.

Oh, God, it was difficult though. Charlie had fallen asleep, his head resting on her shoulder, and she had never known such peace with him in the same room as her. Once she got home, she realized that she should have quit while she was ahead because there was no peace to be had tossing and turning alone in her bed, trying to process the events of this weekend. Even when he wasn't there, he shattered her peace.

She snatched up her phone and hit _Accept_ with her eyes still closed.

"Crews, have you seen the time?"

"Good morning!", he sang into his phone, raising his face to the sun to let it kiss his freckles.

"Is that what you're calling it? Pretty sure it still qualifies as the middle of the night to most people...", she grumbled.

"Um, what are you wearing?"

Her eyes snapped open. "What? Are you for real? Are you...is this phone sex?"

"No! It's just...could you hurry and come to the door please? I think I might have also woken your neighbor and she doesn't look as happy to see me as I hope you will."

He waved apologetically at the 280 pounds of female grimace bundled into a robe menacing him from the next door window.

"Wait...you're here?", Dani sprung from her bed, pulled the drape and flicked up a blade of the blind.

She could see his car.

"Yeah. Hurry though, would you? I think your neighbor's gonna call the cops."

"Well, what do you expect, Crews? Disturbing the peace, in the middle of the night. On a Sunday!" She stomped through her apartment, still holding the phone to her ear. "I'm considering calling the cops myself."

"You are the cops, baby.", he drawled.

She stopped dead. "Never, ever, say anything like that again." She hung up and swung open the door.

There he was, stood on the stoop smiling his ass off, right where she first kissed him and started this madness. She realized that her heart was beating too hard for someone who had only walked the twenty paces from her bed to her door.

"Hi.", he said, looking down at her.

"Hi.", she replied, looking up at him.

In her surprise and her hurry to get to the door she realized she hadn't given any thought to what she was wearing. She stood there in a white tank and black boy-shorts. Comfortable though she was, had she suspected she would be getting an early morning alarm call, she might have selected something a little more alluring to greet him in.

He didn't seem to mind.

Charlie's brain froze because he had noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra. She was still sleepy, her hair tangled into effortless waves that would shame most salons. Without touching her he knew she was still as warm as toast. She made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth and white spots form in his vision.

"Get in here.", she yanked him through the door and crossed her arms over her chest.

"So, are you?", he cocked his head expectantly.

"Am I what?", she frowned.

"More pleased to see me than your neighbor?"

"I imagine I am. The only guy Mrs Franklin likes to see on her lawn is the pizza guy."

He looked disappointed that she hadn't taken his cue to say something nice to him for a change.

"C'mon Crews, _yes_, it's nice that you called over but it's Sunday and I like to sleep in on a Sunday...", she whined in her defense.

"If you'd stayed over we could _both_ still be asleep.", he tutted.

"Oh, I doubt that, Crews." She recognized that she would have been woken at dawn either way.

Sensing that she might just be cranky enough to tell him to leave, he took a step closer.

"Truth is, I missed you."

He chased her eyes, to see how this would go down. She gave a wry smile and twisted her face away, just like he thought she would, and he couldn't tell if she was uncomfortable or embarrassed.

But he looked down to find her pulling him by the wrist, leading him to the bedroom.

"Where are we going?", he asked, feigning innocence.

"To bed, Crews." She saw his eyes light up. "To sleep.", she clarified. "You get to be big spoon - you're a natural."

She drew up to the bed and he began to kick off his shoes eagerly, unbuckle his belt. The way he stood there poised and looking at her, his belt buckle in one hand, the strap in the other; it did something hypnotic to Dani. She moved closer, her head bumping against his chest as she gazed down at his hands. He froze again.

"You just want to sleep, right?", he checked.

"Uh huh.", she managed.

She began to unbutton his jeans for him, painfully slowly, watching his face as she made her way down the row.

"Then you'd better quit looking at me like that."


End file.
